


Agony

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: All In [2]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Captivity whump, Dehumanization, Drugging, Gen, Greg Sanders Whump, Horror, Human Trafficking, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nick Stokes Whump, Nudity, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ownership, Psychological Torture, Torture, Whump, gunshot wound, non-sexual nudity, shock collar, staple gun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 101,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21031574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Sequel to Atrophy. A bullet, a shock collar, a staple gun, a game of chess that isn't so easily won as Veronica is back to drag Nick to a new level of hell, this time bringing Greg along the way.





	1. This time, baby, I'll be (bulletproof)

**Author's Note:**

> Nick asked me in a dream, tied up in a chair, "what's the worst you can do to me?"
> 
> Challenge. Accepted.
> 
> Couple of things before we begin, though:
> 
> Truth be told, at this moment, I have no idea how long this fic will end up being, or some of the places it might go to, but please pay attention to the rating and tags--I will also be throwing up warnings for things that are, at this moment, unplanned as they arise in the fic.
> 
> As with Atrophy, I'm writing this with Nick/Greg as a relationship in mind, the focus in this fic is a bit more on the romantic side than Atrophy was.
> 
> I've had this idea for months now and I'm excited to finally get to explore it in full with any who dare to dive in with me.
> 
> Here we go!

**** Heavy vibrations pulsed through the room, shook the glass in front of her. Loud music blasted through the speakers, the lights flashing along to the rhythm of the song with indistinguishable lyrics. Of all the things that were getting on her nerves, it was this disrespect to the art of music that annoyed her the most. 

“You gonna finish that, sweetheart?” 

Granted, this man, Phillip, was quickly climbing that ladder, sent her blood boiling in a way that only men like him could manage. Oh, how she couldn’t wait to knock out this impatient asshole, who was under the impression that she was getting tipsy enough to be convinced to go to bed with him. 

Little did he know that yes, he would be going to bed with her, but not in the way he may be thinking of. 

“Just a minute, darlin’,” she slurred in an exaggerated fashion. She couldn’t seem too eager, needed to keep up the vulnerable charade. “Don’t wanna waste this  _ delicious  _ drink.”

He leaned in, she had to hide her disgust at his foul, warm breath breathing into her ear. 

“What do you say we take it to go? Got plenty more drinks at my place.”

She faked a moan, watched as his eyes close as she leaned into him. She took the opportunity to take a small syringe out of her purse, began to kiss his lips as she surreptitiously brought the needle to the back of his neck. She kept her eyes open the entire time, watching to make there were no wandering eyes capturing the moment. She bit down on his lower lip to distract him from the small prick into his skin, a smile spreading across her occupied lips.

She was just about to push down on the syringe when her attention was caught by a man on the opposite side of the bar, staring at her with recognition.

And fear.

She sobered up quick, dropped the charade and the syringe back into her fingers, released Phillip from her grasp. She dug around in her purse, fingers brushing against other various tools as she shoved the syringe back into its pouch.

“Sorry, Bill--” 

“--Phil!” She pat him on the cheek, a bit roughly, before jumping off the bar stool, left it spinning. 

“Whatever. Sorry, little man, but something came up. Looks like it’s my lucky night.”

* * *

“Nick? What’s wrong, you look a bit...pale.”

Morgan’s voice was just barely audible under the layers of sound that shook his bones, echoes of screams and shouts reverberating in his ears. A woman on the other side of the bar was staring him down, her lips spread wide into a smile that held something sinister within it, something that told his legs that they needed to  _ run _ .

“I...I gotta go. I’m sorry,” he added, before he dug out a wad of cash from his pocket, slammed it on the counter before he started to back away, keeping his eyes on the woman as she collected her purse, jumped off the stool.

Walked down a path right towards  _ him. _

His body betrayed him, froze and contracted out of some sort of muscle memory that made him feel like he was caught in a glue trap, but he managed to free himself as the woman sauntered closer. He stumbled as he ducked out of the bar, the vague shouts of a bouncer barking at him, “Hey! That door’s for employee’s only!” barely registering through the sound of his heart caught in his throat. 

He dared to look behind him, the woman was not far behind. She wasn’t running, but somehow kept up with his pace as he patted himself down, searching for a phone tucked away in his pockets. 

Who would he even call, he asked himself. Who would even believe him, that he all of a sudden recognized a woman he claimed he couldn’t remember? Beyond that, he managed to piss off everyone that could help him in the last twenty-four hours, the last thing they would want to hear is his voice. 

He wished, more than ever before, that he had his gun. 

He bounded down the alleyway next to the bar, cursed at himself for choosing a path with a dead end. His only way out was a service door to the building next to him, he clamored towards it, fumbled with the knob, anxiously keeping watch on the approaching woman.

He could just call 9-1-1, but what would he say? “Help, I think I’m being chased by an insane psychopath who abducted me before, but I’m not entirely sure cause I don’t remember what she looks like?”

“That’s more like it, you can  _ finally  _ hear the lyrics. Though it’s not quite that clear, is it? Good thing I  _ love  _ this song,” the woman’s voice called to him, the casualty of her tone made his stomach swirl, as if she thought he was an old friend, but it also confirmed to him that it was indeed  _ her,  _ because he could never forget that voice. 

The door finally opened, revealed that the only way to go was down. He grimaced, had a sinking feeling that this wouldn’t lead to an actual escape.

But it was the only option he had.

The woman began to sing loudly, he leapt down the stairs, skipping a few steps by holding on to the railing and lunging himself forward. He nearly fell when he reached the bottom stair, his hand stopped his fall, the cold, damp concrete stained the skin of his clammy palm.

It was hot, dense, must be an underground boiler room, as he could see a light layer of steam pushing out of large metal tanks that lined the dark hallway. The lights were on a motion sensor, activating as he ran further and further into the void in front of him, praying for some sort of fork in the road. 

His fingers fumbled with the buttons on his phone as he decided to try calling Greg. Greg was the only one who wasn’t at the scene, the only one who didn’t know he had been suspended--unless Sara spilled the beans to him, already, which was quite possible--was his only hope.

But Greg was already mad at him for other reasons, would he just think that he’s crying wolf?

Just as he was about to hit the dial button, the phone fell out of his hands, a small explosion whizzing past him,  _ just  _ missing his fingers, he heard the clatter of metal falling to the ground, bouncing. A shell casing. 

_ Oh shit, she has a gun. _

Despite the distraction, he couldn’t stop running. The lights flickered on in front of him, there was a branching path after all, he shot a glance behind him, saw a blurry, shadowy figure--still singing along to the distant bass thumping in his blood--waving a gun in the air, dancing along to the song, before directing the gun’s aim at him.

He ducked down as another bullet was fired, narrowly missing his shoulder. He prayed that the steam was impairing his assailant’s visibility, and he plastered himself against the wall, inched towards the shadowy alcove that the light didn’t quite reach.

The signing got louder, as he tried to quiet his heavy breathing. He was sucking as much air into his body as he could, but his lungs were shrinking rapidly, trying to keep up with the rapid hyperventilation. 

_ Stop, just stop, just stay quiet, don’t move, don’t move, don’t move… _

He saw her out of the corner of an eye that dared to peek out of the shadows. She kept walking forward, still singing. He waited until her voice faded away before he allowed himself to emerge from hiding, began his trek back outside, to safety.

He spotted his phone on the ground a few feet away, he reached out towards it, right as the soft, distant bass was cranked up to a loud blossom of sound, the singing promoted to the maximum volume, as if he were thrown right into a concert, he spun around, searched for the source--

Interrupted by another gunshot, and a primal scream.

A blinding flash stunned him, sent him to the ground.

Heat and pain overtook his left thigh, so intense that he lost all feeling for a few seconds, before he tried to crawl towards his phone, just inches away. Strained grunts as he still tried to escape the inevitable, which on some level, he knew he was doomed to submit to. He rolled over, his hat fell off of his head, as he reached a hand towards the mobile device.

He couldn’t stand up, the rough cement scraped his knees as he heard swift footsteps speeding towards him, the singing getting louder and louder, muffled behind a monotonous ring in his ears that masked his own breath. 

“This time, baby, I’ll be…”

His body froze, stretched out, before shrinking into a ball of pain, as something stomped on the gushing wound, pinned him to the spot. Heard the sounds of squelching, felt something press down  _ hard  _ through his skin, onto the bone in his leg...

“Bulletproof.” 

He writhed and wriggled under the pressure, squinted through tears of pain to stare at the giant, looming shadow above him, reaching a hand down towards him. The hand squeezed his lips together, enticing the exchange of air to speed up as he bit down on his tongue. Lifted up his head, the shadow dissipated, the blur focused on her face. Wide, gleeful eyes, nose scrunched up as a tongue danced behind unnerving bright red lips. The scent of cherry infiltrating his nostrils, but the smell wasn’t as pleasant as it used to be. 

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, my sweet little toy.” 

Her voice sent his body into an involuntary vibration, ignited a flight or fight response that send his brain firing a million synapses to a heart that was too distracted trying to escape.

Pure and utter terror.

She brought her other hand up in front of his eyes, holding a small syringe filled with a clear liquid, before she moved his head to the side. He tried to squirm out of grasp, which earned another pressing against the throbbing hole in his thigh. 

_ Not again… _

But his body didn’t turn to stone as it did before, instead, he could feel his eyes lag behind as she began to peel away his jacket, her movements blurred. He tried to move his hands in front of him, fight back, but she batted his weary arms away with ease. She wrapped his jacket around his leg--

“Don’t want to leave a trail behind us, do we?” she cooed to him, stroked his cheek. “Aw, looks like someone’s ready for his nap.”

The last thing he saw was her foot, shattering his phone. The steam hanging in the air became a black cloud that swallowed him whole. 

* * *

A deep rooted instinct warned him not to sit up. The surface beneath him did nothing to ease the arch of pain in his spine, it was not as solid as the damp concrete, instead it was a surface filled with gaps and seemed to sink his body down in an uncomfortable position. As he shifted, he felt small pricks from metal coils, as he realized he was on a bed without a mattress.

His back was protected by the cloth of his shirt, but the lower half of his body felt more exposed, toes caught in one of the loops. He sat up, found that his shoes, socks and pants were gone. Seeing his naked skin, he felt cold, though there was a burning in his leg that was absent of fire. He observed the wound, blood poking out of the edges of the saran wrap that was containing the blood in its folds. 

“What the fuck-” a sharp gasp turned to an echoing scream as he sat up even more, using the brick wall next to him as leverage to steady himself after a spike of pain shot up through his body. Wild eyes scanned the rest of the room, there was another wall in front of him, made of bricks, another behind him--there was just enough space for the bed, between the three walls, and there was only about two feet separating the final wall, which was not a wall, per se--didn’t even reach the ceiling, there was about a two-foot gap at the top--rather a gateway, a chain link fence with a lock attached to a hinged door. 

The walls pulsed along with his throbbing head, he felt the room shrink and expand in on him as his breathing became more labored, studying the dried patch of blood--presumably his own, next to the bed, eyes followed the trail of blood through the fence’s door. The trail branched off, a bloody smear to the left, footprints to the right.

He gulped, blinked his eyes forcefully a few times, to ensure he wasn’t dreaming, as his eyes were drawn to the figure on the other side of the fence that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, that startled him, sent him scampering backwards on the bed. 

“Ah, good, you’re awake.”

His eyes didn’t deceive him, even in the low light glowing from a light bulb swinging from the ceiling in the hallway, it was  _ her.  _

Veronica.

“Wh-What?” Nick muttered, trying to figure out what sort of nightmare realm he had stumbled into.

“You can’t sleep through it all, silly! There’s just so much I have planned for us,” Veronica taunted in an annoyingly jovial voice.

“You can’t do this,” Nick barked at her. He managed to get off of the bed, thinking he’d be able to stand up, but couldn’t shift his weight fast enough, tumbled into the fence in front of him. He lifted himself up to eye level with the woman, his fingers grabbed the wires firmly. He pressed his face against the fence, a low growl shook his stomach.

“Oh yes, my precious little pet,” she cooed to him, touched his the tip of his nose that poked through the fence with every inflection of her words. “I can do  _ whatever I want to you _ .”

He shook her finger off, contemplated an attempt to bite it, before she began to walk away. 

“Hey, no, wait come back!” he pleaded. She pretended not to hear him, began to hum. “Let me out of here! Veronica! VERONICA!”

* * *

Veronica could hardly contain her excitement, leaned back against the bench that her body was splayed out on, waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up. She closed her eyes, his screams still echoed through her bloodstream, she begged for the sound to keep going, feeling an adrenaline surge she had not felt in almost a year. Her lips curled up as she inhaled the cool desert air through her nose, released into a long, pleasured sigh. 

She peeked an eye open as a car pulled up, and she rolled her head down to stare as the driver rolled down the passenger’s window.

“Sorry I’m late!” he called to her. 

“It’s alright, doll, just enjoying this beautiful night. Quite a view, being on the edge of the devil’s playground,” she noted, regretfully getting up from the bench, though she lingered, staring at the neon jungle in the distance. He got out of the car, walked in front of the car with hands in the pockets of a jacket that smelled familiar. 

“Well...are you ready to play?” he asked her, wrapping his arms around her from behind. 

“Oh, Greg...like you have to ask.”


	2. Crawl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to the events that led to Nick and Morgan's outing, and the introduction of a "training" tool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we reach a certain line in this chapter, that I feel like I need to make sure everyone is clear...this is NOT intended to be a story with sexual undertones, though this chapter includes a rather...intense moment that might be interpreted as such. So again, I just feel like I need to make it clear...Veronica is not that type of monster. It's a power play, and nothing more.

“What were you thinking, Nick?”

“We’re not cops, Nicky!” 

Two voices screamed simultaneously in surround sound, filled his ears with dread. Being called into a new supervisor’s office alone, with the door shut and blinds closed was never a good sign. Although, not necessarily alone, as Catherine Willows stood with arms crossed and beside the new man in charge, the lines of her face fraught with disappointment.

“I know, I know…” Nick muttered. He rubbed throbbing temples with weary fingers. He felt guilty enough over his actions, without the additional scolding. Though he wasn’t entirely guilty of what happened, but rather, what  _ didn’t  _ happen. “I was out of line, I apologize.”

It worked once, in a similar situation, almost six years ago. Excuses had been made at the time, that he was still raw from the events of the summer, that time was of the essence, a little girl’s life was at stake.

But this time? 

There was no excuse, and no victim to rescue.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to, bud. And unfortunately, looks like that ship has sailed, anyway.” 

“Just like that little boy’s life,” Nick growled. 

“It’s not our job to save them, Nick. It’s a cold, hard truth, but it’s one I have to make sure you understand--”

“But it  _ is  _ our job to solve the case, and we did, and yet the person that ended that boy’s life  _ walked free,  _ and you and I both know that he--”

“Just like you and I both know that we  _ cannot  _ take the law into our own hands, Nick!” Catherine interrupted. “This is L.A. all over again! And look where that got us--”

“If this is your way of reminding me where the door is again, I don’t need a fucking map, Catherine.”

“Hey! Okay, Nick, listen,” DB raised his voice.

“What, you gonna buy us all breakfast again? Get us to sit down and sing ‘Kumbaya?’”

DB stood up, turned towards the wall behind him. Nick clenched his jaw, tightened his grip on the chair that he was slumped into. It felt wrong, being on this side of the desk. To see the counter space that previously held Nick’s assortment of bird skeletons and books, now occupied by plants and mushrooms. 

After a few moments, DB turned around again, his glasses held in his one hand, another wiping over his eyes.

“I don’t want to do this, and it was not my decision--”  _ So it was Conrad’s decision, you kiss ass.  _ “But I think you should take a few days off.” 

Anger huffed up in Nick’s chest. Never in his career had he gotten himself in a hole this deep, far surpassing six feet.

“I’m out of vacation days,” he quipped smartly. If this was happening, if DB was really going to suspend him, he wanted him to say the words. 

“It’s not a suggestion. It’s an order.”

Nick looked over to Catherine, pursed lips and fire in her eyes. A slight shake in her head that warned him not to press any further. Nick got up from the chair swiftly, kicked it away, almost knocking it over. The sound of legs scraping against the floor covered over DB’s voice.

“We’ll continue this discussion when you get back.”

“Hey, Nick--” DB called as Nick was just about to open the door. “I’m going to need your ID...and gun.”

Nick spun around slowly, his tongue licked over his lips. He stalked slowly towards the desk, flexing his fingers, his teeth clenched. He kept his eyes on DB as he unclipped his ID badge from his shirt pocket, dug out his key card to get into the building, stuck them together and put them on the desk, before slamming his gun down firmly on top.

His fingers lingered, turned the gun towards the picture of the suspect--no, not just suspect,  _ killer-- _ that got away. He watched as DB looked down, scrunched his lips together. A mannerism that almost reminded him of Grissom, Nick raised his eyebrows, waiting for him to say something, but moments passed and no words were tossed into the tight air that wrapped around Nick’s throat.

DB met his eyes, opened his mouth as if to finally say something, but Nick didn’t give him the satisfaction, turned away and left the office.

It took every bone in his body not to just slam the door shut, he needed a release for the bottled tornado inside his body, and the watchful eyes of his colleagues were not helping matters. 

The raging storm paused as he met eyes with Sara Sidle, who was standing near the doorway, a folder opened in her hand, her eyes passing over words on what Nick could presume were lab results or a report, but he saw how her ears were perked up. As he brushed past her, she caught his arm, brought him in for a whisper. He was hoping for some words of comfort, some fall back onto a bond formed in solidarity against the unjust authority 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she told him, before he shrugged out of her grip and stormed to the locker room.

He furiously stuffed his bag with his clothing, ripping the articles so roughly that the pictures on the side of his locker fell into his duffel bag on the ground, too.

“Laundry day, huh?” 

Morgan Brody’s voice startled him out of his blind rage, he gripped the edges of the locker door, chuckled lowly.

“Got some time off,” he muttered. 

“Yeah...me too, after…”

She cleared her throat, sat on the bench. Nick nodded, offering a sad empathetic smile as he sat next to her. 

“Not my choice, I’d rather just keep working.”

“I know the feeling.” 

“I don’t want to just sit around all day and wallow, I need…”

“A distraction.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. 

“Tell you what, I know this place that’s pretty lively, some good drinks, good tunes. Good place to go to just...forget. Maybe we can...go get distracted together?”

* * *

His bones were shaking beneath the ice-cold pores of his skin.

As his head floated in the confines of his prison, he kept asking himself how skin so cold could sweat so much.

And every time, he looked to his thigh for the answer. 

A sight that didn’t help settle the rising bile in his throat, he wondered if that’s what the pot underneath the bed was for.

No, that was probably for something else. 

Not that he needed it at this point, anyway.

Not anymore.

So much blood loss, he was going into shock. 

He needed to get to a hospital.

It had been hours--perhaps six or seven, give or take, based on an internal clock constructed during his time in another prison with no windows. 

He wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he was locked away underground again.

He surmised that he was in some sort of abandoned animal shelter, based on the foul odors and cage he was locked in, and the row of larger cages lining the other side of the hall, absent of human beds, decorated with large pillows and dish bowls. 

And bones.

He could just barely see a door at one end of the hall, the other end shrouded in shadows. The blood trail led towards the door, which Veronica had left through, he kept his eyes on the door when he wasn’t monitoring his poorly wrapped wound. 

His hands clutched the sleeves of his shirt, crossed arms hugging his body to generate heat. He leaned against the fence, tried to weave his way through thoughts of throbbing pain to form the foundation of an escape plan to put into action when she returns. 

Last time was proof that she always comes back.

But she didn’t paralyze him this time.

He could fight back. 

He kept the foot of his uninjured leg at the ready, shook it awake at the first sign of numbness from disuse. 

Ran the scenario in his head, he would kick her, and keep kicking until she was down. 

At the very least, get her into the cage, lock her in. 

Call for help.

The door creaked open, the sound sent a jolt through his body, his back straightened, he shifted his weight. Flexed his toes on the concrete as she approached, slowly...almost too slow. Every footfall matching the slow, heavy exhales of his breathing, the thump-thump-thump of his heart. 

His vision was unreliable, her body was blurred, vibrating between the stinging edges of his eyes. 

As she got closer to his cage, the vibrating slowed, and he saw that she had a gun in one hand, some sort of large...ring in the other. 

“Aw, you must be cold, you poor thing,” she remarked as she unlocked the cage. “If you behave, I’ll bring you a blanket--”

As she crossed the threshold he threw the first kick--aimed at her knee, but he misjudged how close her body was, he missed his target.

“Ah, ah, ah!” An annoying tone of degradation in her voice, she grabbed his foot. “What did I just say about ‘behaving?’”

“Please...I need...a hospital…” he stuttered as she bent down, foot still in her grasp, placed the large ring on the ground. She leaned into him, pointed the gun at his temple.

“Are you going to behave?”

“Gonna...bleed out...Need help,” he pleaded, if fighting back wasn’t going to work, he needed to appeal to her human side. 

If she had one.

But he knew, and she knew that the goal of all of this wasn’t to kill Nick. She made that clear last time--if she wanted him dead, he would have joined Officer Marsh in his premature grave. 

It sickened him to admit, but she  _ wanted  _ him. Alive.

“We’ll take care of  _ that  _ in a minute,” she released his leg, dropped it to the side, used her free hand to pat the wet saran wrap. A sharp inhale of pain trailed off with a crack in his voice as he whimpered, but she caught the noise in his windpipe as she wrapped her hand around his neck. “ _ Are-you-going-to-behave?”  _

A futile struggle for air, a battle he was familiar with, that he knew he wouldn’t win without giving her exactly what she wanted. Gun against his head, his Adam’s apple throbbing underneath her palm, bleeding out, his only option was to give her a three letter word. 

But what would happen if he didn’t? What would happen if he let her choke him out--would he just pass out, or would he actually be found dead from strangulation, stripped down, locked away like some sort of abandoned animal?

If he passed out...what would she do to him? 

“Hey! No!” she screamed at him. She loosened her grip on his neck, jabbed the gun into the side of his head. “No falling asleep on me now, my little Nicky, not until you give me an answer.”

Passing out wasn’t an option, apparently. One less thing to worry about.

“Y-ye...yes.”

“Yes,  _ what? _ ” Veronica asked, removed her hand from his neck, moved it towards the discarded ring on the ground. Nick took the moment to bring his shaking hand to his throat, massage it as he gasped for air.

“Yes, I-I’ll...I’ll behave.” 

“Glad to hear it!” 

In one swift movement, his hand was swatted away, and something was clasped around his neck with a soft  _ click! _

“What did you--” he gasped, used his fingers to feel the cold metal that collared his neck. 

“Don’t worry, it’s just for your training.” 

“My  _ what? _ ”

“Oh, my little Nicky-Wicky Poo…” she cooed to him, as if he were missing something that was as clear as day, in her eyes. 

She tapped his cheek, her tongue danced out between her teeth as she withdrew the gun from his head, set it behind her back. She gently took his hands off of the collar, placed them down on the ground at his sides. 

“What are you doing?” he asked quickly. “Please, don’t…”

“When are you going to accept the fact…” She stroked his hair, fluffing it up after it was flattened from the sweat. “That I’m not a monster, not like  _ them.  _ I chose you, and I’m gonna take good care of you.”

She leaned in even closer, Nick could feel her breath warm up his cheek as he turned his head away, frightened as to what she was about to do.

He had every right to be scared, as her tongue fully emerged from her mouth and slid over his cheek, before she released him and stood up, placed a foot on his chest, pinning him to the wall. 

“I  _ own  _ you.”

He didn’t even have the strength to try and remove the foot from his chest, her heel digging into his sternum. Stunned silence, his lips quivered, his thigh kept throbbing, his body kept shaking. 

She watched him for what seemed like an hour, but in reality was only a few minutes, cocked her head to the side, before removing her foot and walking backwards towards the door. 

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

He was hesitant, but if she was offering to take care of his gunshot wound, some care is better than no care, even by the hands of a psychopath. He gripped the loops of the cage, slowly rising to his feet, inched towards the door. She lifted her head as he approached, a twisted smirk on her face as she gripped the back of his head when he was within reach, threw him to the ground.

“Crawl.” 


	3. Operation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg contemplates change while Nick undergoes a rough day filled of struggling, surgery, and a shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legit say this like, every time I really wail the whump on Nick but this might be the most intense chapter I've put him through so far.   
(Don't worry, though, he'll get a little bit of a break...)

Greg wasn’t afraid of change. In most cases, he welcomed it. He would often grow bored when things stayed the same for too long, even used to move things around in the DNA lab to keep himself on his toes. When he moved out of the DNA office, he found that he would redecorate his locker every month, and eventually would redecorate his corner of the shared office after Grissom left. 

And with every change, he of course would miss the way things were, but would try to look forward with a sense of optimism that he would admit was influenced by the way his co-workers always seemed to roll with whatever was thrown at them. 

He didn’t even care that he was kicked out of the office, not really, having adjusted to not having a personalized work space since he worked in the DNA lab full time. He had grown accustomed to working in the break room, or the layout room, or even in the meeting room if it was unoccupied. He was surprised that Nick was so hung up about it, but then again, Nick did have the bigger piece of the pie in the shared space of their old office, and a certain attachment to the previous occupant.

He was also surprised as Nick didn’t seem to be that enthused about the shake up in the department, holding a certain...rigid politeness with newcomers DB and Morgan, holding them at arm’s length, versus the soft, welcoming way he had accepted others into the team before.

Perhaps it was a circumstance of what happened with Langston, the betrayal of trust, as maybe he felt abandoned—they all felt like Ray abandoned them, really, after all the lengths they went to to help him. With everything that happened, though, he doesn't blame him for not coming back. There are just some things that aren't as easy to bounce back from.

“Hey, GREG! C’mere a second!” DB’s voice shouted from the other side of the lab, interrupting Greg in his walk to his temporary working space of the day, the break room. 

And perhaps it was the way DB was a bit...headstrong in his zany approach to bring bring cohesiveness back to the shaken team. 

“Yeah, boss?” Greg asked as he peeked his head in the doorway. 

“Hey, bud, glad I caught you, listen…” DB began, beckoning Greg into the room. He handed Greg a large stack of reports. “Gonna need you to comb through these, fill in some of the blanks you left. Thanks.”

DB swiftly walked past him, shouting for the next victim of his desire for every detail in the report, and Greg realized that while he didn’t necessarily miss the office space, he missed the opportunity for better organization that came along with it. 

“Oh, sorry, I think that one’s mine,” he muttered as he and Sara sifted through their mixed reports in the break room minutes later. Their stacks had collapsed, the contents spilled out of the manila folders, and Greg suddenly missed the wire bin he had on his desk for such an instance. “You know, at least when we got piles like this from Grissom, it was because he didn’t know which ones he actually signed off on, not because I forgot to include what shirt I was wearing that day.”

“You, uh, hear from Nick?” Sara cleared her throat as they settled back into their chairs. 

“No, haven’t seen him since we closed the stabbing case on Tuesday.”

“He got suspended,” Sara whispered after glancing around to make sure they weren’t within earshot of anybody, especially Hodges. 

“He  _ what?” _ Greg gasped incredulously. “What...what did he do? DB doesn’t seem like the type...”

“Got a bit rough with a suspect.”

“Oh. That makes a bit more sense, I guess.” 

“Heard some raised voices, he even snapped at Catherine. It is...It is coming up on a year since…” 

Silence fell between them, Greg gulped as an image of Nick flashed in front of his eyes, shackled and broken. 

He tried to replace it by whipping out his phone to text his friend, reach out to him— _ Hey, wanna grab a beer after shift? _

“I think he went out with Morgan the other day, though.”

He deleted his message. 

“Oh. Good for him,” he nodded, suddenly finding interest in the stack of reports in front of him. 

“Funny, you know, I thought you would be the first to ask,” Sara smirked. 

“Me? With Ecklie’s daughter? Nah,” Greg shrugged off, but couldn’t deny the minor crush he had on Morgan, reminiscent of the crush he once had on Sara herself.

But it wasn’t the only crush he had back then, just as his crush on Morgan was not the only crush he had right now. 

He found himself texting another message, this time, he hit send. 

_ Hey, wanna go grab a bite to eat later? _

It would be hours before he got a response.

* * *

His knees buckled, the palms of his hands slammed against the stone floor. The tip of his nose just narrowly missed the hard concrete, his head lifted up at the last second with a pained yelp as an explosion erupted in his thigh. He heaved deep, forceful breaths as he tried to stop the shaking in his bones, as the impact of the fall simmered into a gentle soreness. 

Nick was painfully aware of the collar around his neck, made of some sort of leather with some sort of metal attachment that his chin rested on as he swallowed lungfuls of oxygen. As balance returned to his senses, a grim realization hit him just as hard as the stone grinding against his knees that Veronica intended to treat him like some sort of animal, between the collar, the crawling and her brief mention of “training.” 

“You got a cute little tush,” Veronica mused. 

A strong, nauseating concoction of dread and humiliation rose within his body, he reached out towards the nearest surface for leverage as he tried to stand up again…

Only to be met with a swift kick to his butt, which launched his torso into a backwards arch, and in turn, Veronica yanked the back of his head, drew it in close, the veins in his neck throbbed against the unforgiving material against his skin. 

_ “Crawl,”  _ she repeated in a hiss, before throwing him back toward the ground. He spun over, a move he regretted as the pain in his thigh jumped to a new level. He rested on his elbows as she towered over him, her arms crossed, an eyebrow raised. He could see his chest rise above himself, feel the sting in the corners of his eyes, but he couldn’t back down, needed to show resistance. Couldn’t let her see how her claws had sunk far beneath his skin, how the sight of her looking so...casual boiled his blood. 

“Take all the time you want, I got nowhere to be,” she smirked. 

“Hospital,” he growled through gritted teeth. “I need to go to a hospital. Or do you want your precious little  _ pet  _ to bleed out?”

Using the word made him want to expel all fluids from his body, but he had used it in an attempt to get her to see reason, to see that she was dehumanizing him, and that this  _ wasn’t right.  _

Veronica rolled her eyes and sighed loudly, exaggerating her exhale as she swiveled around in a dance-like motion. She walked towards the other end of the hall, which seemed to be a shorter distance than the way they were originally headed, and Nick took the reprieve to grab on to the nearest wall and stand up again. She walked into the door at the end of the hall—Nick began to hobble away—he put all of his weight on his good leg—increased in speed and distance with every step, adrenaline poured out in buckets of cold sweat, he was  _ getting away— _

And then, something pulled him back, constricted his air pipe, he choked and sputtered as he was dragged backwards, back towards the cell. 

“I was hoping I didn’t have to use this, but since you decided to throw a tantrum…”

He coughed out the air that was lodged in his throat as something was wrapped away from his neck, but it wasn’t the collar. It was a noose attached to a large pole, the kind Nick had seen used to wrangle animals. 

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Veronica teased, waving the noose in front of Nick. 

“I can  _ walk _ ,” Nick protested, clenched his teeth. He batted the stick out of the way, and Veronica started tapping various points of his body with every enunciated word. 

“No, you can’t, not with that leg—”

“No thanks to you, bitch.”

“—and besides, that’s not an option.” 

“Oh yeah, and why not?”

“Because I said it’s not. How many times do we have to go through this, Nicky?”

“As many times as it takes for you to let me go to a  _ fucking hospital!” _

“Hard way it is, then.”

She hooked him on the stick again, this time pulling his head down and dragging him from the front. His hands didn’t quite know what to do with themselves, he tried to wrestle the noose off, but every time he touched it, it jerked out of his fingers, his head bobbing along with it. He tried to plant his hands on the ground, his arms shaking as he tried to resist the force pulling him down the dried trail of his own blood. He tried to grab the stick and wretch it out of Veronica’s hands, but was met with the same game of tug-of-war he had with the noose itself. 

Somehow in the struggle, they had made it halfway to their destination, and in a final attempt to get out of the situation, Nick looped his fingers into the holes of the nearest cage door. He held on so tightly that he thought the pressure would amputate his fingers. He tried to shake his head out of the loop, the rope digging under his chin. 

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, you must be getting so  _ tired _ …” Veronica taunted him. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there…”

She jerked the pole quickly, then immediately dropped it, allowed him the chance to catch his breath. She waited until he had relaxed his grip, he even started to rub his fingers on his throbbing throat, before dragging him back to the center of the hall, but waited as he continued to recover from choking—he kept his head bowed down, waiting for vomit that just wouldn’t pass through his throat. He was on torn knees, hands splayed out in front of him, his spine ached in an arch of pain. He could feel blood trickle down the bare skin of his thigh, pouring into the cracks of his kneecaps. 

But he still wouldn’t bend to her will.

“Go...to...hell,” he gasped in the gaps of his hyperventilation. 

“Aw, you guessed it, that’s exactly where we’re going!” 

She took his hoarse words as a sign that he was well enough to continue, and the struggle ensued with the blood trail getting a fresh coat of paint, the harsh rubbing of rope against the back of Nick’s head and Veronica’s  _ laughter  _ as they approached the dreaded door at the end of the hall. 

Veronica kicked the door open, and threw Nick in front of her. He barely had time to register his surroundings as she took the noose off and grabbed his hand, wrapped something around his wrist—he heard the sound of velcro as it was tightened around his rapid pulse. 

Before he could use his free hand to release himself from the restraint, Veronica swiftly grabbed it and pulled it behind his back, wrapped another cuff around his wrist. He was in an awkward position, something barred across his back which  _ hurt like hell  _ and he kept trying to kick his feet, kick  _ her,  _ but every movement in his bad leg cost him another flash of pain in his thigh. 

Which made it very easy for Veronica to grab his good leg, quickly pull it up and over to the surface he was being tied to, and wrap another cuff around his ankle. 

She stood back for a minute, observed his limp leg that was twitching in pain, before she grabbed his ankle with one hand, pressed down on the wound in the other. 

A pained yelp brought a smile to her face as she tightly wrapped the final cuff around his ankle. He flailed in his restraints, but the straps only gave him a few inches of movement, and on top of his exhaustion from the struggle in the hall, he found himself resigned to lay his head back against the cold table he was strapped to.

He had shut his eyes to focus on his breathing, get his body back under control, try to regain some calm and assess his surroundings. 

But it was hard to stay calm under the rising heat of the light strung above him, flashing him back to another torturous light in another form of entrapment. His head lolled to the side, expecting to feel a decrease in air flow, surprised when he instead felt warm breath on his face.

“You’re so adorable when you struggle.”

She walked over to his injured leg and tightened the strap on the cuff so that he could barely move, just violent twitches. 

She turned away, walked towards a darkened corner of the room, and turned on a radio, music began to play. Nick took the moment to study his surroundings—not that there was much to see. The edges of the room were shrouded in darkness, he couldn’t make out details, but could see the outlines of counter tops and cabinets. He heard the clatter of metal, the stench was foul and made him wince. He could almost taste the rust as he noticed dust particles floating in the air above him. 

However, the table beneath him felt clean, the straps felt new. It seemed that she was renovating this abandoned shelter brick by brick. 

He wondered how long she intended to keep him here.

He nearly jumped at the sound of a rolling table, his stomach sank as he saw the source of the noise. On top of the table was a bottle of whiskey, a scalpel blade, a pair of forceps, and a staple gun. 

She rounded the table, gently tapping him on his face though he jerked way at her touch, and grabbed a standing lamp from another corner of the room. She rolled it over and turned it on, purposefully directing the light at his face before she aimed it at his thigh. 

She used a scalpel to cut away the blood soaked plastic covering his wound, he felt the tip of the blade just barely nick his skin. He could just see the large stain of blood wrapped around his thigh before he saw that Veronica picked up the bottle of whiskey, taking a large sip. 

“You want some?” she asked, nodding to him with the bottle. 

He didn’t react, tried to lock away any semblance of emotion. She seemed to relish his attempt to do so, as she slowly tipped the open bottle over, he inhaled sharply as the liquid began to pour...directly onto the open hole in his thigh. 

Nick couldn’t suppress the scream that burst from his chest, throwing his body into a fit of pain and rage as the alcohol stung and burned. The alcohol smeared the blood away from his skin, evaporated quickly though she just kept pouring until the bottle was half empty. His screams dissolved into an anguished sob as he just wanted everything to  _ stop. _

He thrust his torso forward, his chin met his collarbone as he remembered that he couldn’t sit up fully, his wrists acting as anchors keeping him pinned to the table. He felt excruciating pain in his shoulder as he nearly ripped it out of his socket, trying in futile attempt to wrench himself out of the restraints. He felt the table shift beneath him, briefly wondered if he struggled enough, if he could somehow roll it over, if perhaps in the fall the straps would be loosened and he could escape, but Veronica saw the movement of the table, too, held it in place.

She then poured alcohol over the pair of forceps, started to open and close them, snipping at Nick’s nose. He threw his face back and forth, sputtered from the strong stench of whiskey that invaded his nostrils as she clamped his nose together and he was forced to breathe through his mouth for a few seconds before she released him. 

“Don’t worry, I always win at ‘Operation.’ Might need to cheat  _ just  _ a little though, widen the space so these can fit…” 

She used the scalpel to expand the hole, created a wider slit in his thigh. 

Veronica hummed along to the song as she brought the forceps to his thigh, stuck them inside his skin. He shouted as she roughly and carelessly perused the inside of his leg, could feel the forceps rub up against his muscles—

“Aha! Found it! Oh, oopsie—” she giggled, as she pulled on an edge of the hole with the scissors, stretching it out, Nick yelped in pain. “Can’t touch the sides, guess I have to start over!” 

“JUST GET IT OUT ALREADY!” he screamed as she dropped the bullet back down, washing the forceps in alcohol again. He threw his head back, hyperventilating through tears of pain. “Please, just...stop…”

“Patience, Nicky, patience. It’d be easier if you wouldn’t squirm so much, sweetie.”

Nick tried to keep as still as he could, to prevent any more “do-overs,” though the room seemed to be shrinking around him, black fireworks flashing in front of his eyes. 

Veronica seemed to notice that he was about to pass out, too, as she quickly removed the bullet and brought it to his face. 

“Wanna bite it?” she laughed at some twisted joke inside her head. It took Nick longer than a minute to realize through the pain, she was referencing the line, “bite the bullet.” 

“Fuck you…” he panted. 

“Hmpf, thought you’d be a little more grateful than that. Now, let’s get you stitched up…”

His heart sank as he realized what the staple gun was for. 

She pinched his skin between her fingers, lowered the gun towards the wound, he could feel the harsh metal against his skin.

“No, wait—please—don’t—” he started to plead, but without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

His screams bounced off of the table, off of the curved shade of both lights, off of the hollow void of the darkened room, dribbled through the hallway. He prayed that his screams were loud enough to be heard by whoever might have been nearby outside of the building—though he was still unsure if they even above ground, there were no windows in sight. But Veronica seemed confident enough as she continued to staple his wound, as he continued to scream louder and louder and louder, because if there was even the possibility that someone would hear them, she would have gagged him, surely. 

“There we go, all done!” she exclaimed as she tossed the staple gun back to the table and undid the restraints. He was too exhausted from all the physical and mental exertion to immediately realize he was free, and when he did, his limbs still twitched against invisible bonds. Instead of another attempt at escape, he found his arms weakly cradle his sore, thumping chest, felt his good leg approach the other leg with a gentle curl. He tried to stifle his crying, though he didn’t so much care about any damaged dignity, not when he was worried about an impending infection in his still throbbing thigh. 

He was just settling into an oddly comfortable position, curled up on the steel table, his sticky, sweaty skin cooling off in the sudden stillness, when the table began to lift up, slanted. He slid off and landed onto the floor, on top of the stapled wound, causing him to dredge up one last scream that he didn’t know he was capable of. 

He rolled onto his good side, tried to crawl away—“Oh, of course,  _ now  _ you crawl!” Veronica hollered—as she grabbed the back of his head, dragged him forward, away from the open door, and into the black void ahead. 

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, they had entered a tiled stall, presumably used to wash the animals. She pushed him forward, then reeled him in with a fistful of his shirt, that she wrestled off of him, and then shoved him down so that he landed against the wall. His fingers were forced to touch the grimy, moist tiles as he tried to leverage his floating body, disoriented from the darkness and sudden movement. He had gotten up, was using the wall to support an attempt to leave—

And then, his body was assaulted with a pressurized burst of hot water, first hitting him squarely in the back, brought him to his knees. He twisted around, held up his hands, as if that would stop the flow from hitting his body. The water welted up his entire body, his face, his arms, his stomach, his feet, his legs...his  _ thighs _ —more screams, that he didn’t even have the vocal capacity for at this point, bellowed through the rough soreness in his throat. 

She focused more time on his thigh than the other parts of his body, but wasn’t satisfied until every inch of his skin was covered in water. He could feel the parts that she had hit longer, could already see the bruises forming on his skin. He didn’t know how long his “shower” lasted, but he surmised it was much longer than it needed to be, was left curled up on the grimy tiled floor by the end of it. 

“Come on, back to your cage,” she snapped her fingers. He lifted his head to look at her through his screwed up face, tears mingling with the sweat and water on his skin. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. 

“You are being  _ so difficult  _ today, just absolutely useless,” she drawled as she grabbed the hair of his head, dragged him out of the room. He grabbed onto his discarded shirt, hugged it to his chest. If she noticed, she didn’t seem to care. 

They reached the doorway and she dropped him to the ground. She passed the threshold and held the dog-catcher pole in her hands, waited expectantly until Nick lifted his head to look at her again. 

“ _ Crawl,”  _ she ordered.

He had no other choice, there was no way he could walk, not with his thigh, not with his battered body.

He put one hand in front of him, and then the other, pulling his body forward. Each movement costing him energy he didn’t have. She walked backwards, a huge smile on her face as she watched him make his way down the hall at a snail’s pace, only turning away from him to open his cell door. 

He was almost happy when he was prodded back inside, collapsed to the ground, still clutching the shirt that he didn’t even try to pull over his head, though he felt so  _ cold. _ Veronica left the door hanging open while she darted to the other end of the hall, and came back with a piece of fabric—the blanket that she promised him earlier, threw it at him before locking the door. 

“Sweet dreams, Nicky,” she cooed to him before blowing him a kiss and walking away. Before she was completely out of sight, she turned around, as if she forgot something.

“You know…” she started, walking back towards the cage, stood tall in front of him. “If you think I’m bad now...wait until you meet my boyfriend.”


	4. Scarab91311

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica goes home, and Greg confesses some repressed feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: has a mental breakdown about my abilities to write  
also me: updates my fic in less than a week  
enjoy!

“Take me home.”

There was something comforting about the drive back into suburbia. The return to a private sanctuary, filled with nothing but comfort and love. A safe space free of the stress, drama and heartache of the surrounding world.

An escape from the horrors of Sin City; the greed, crime, and corruption. The suburbs offered an illusion of that picket-fenced protection from such dangers. 

It also offered opportunity for more pleasant social interactions, smiles and waves from neighbors during the routine of pulling into the driveway, checking the mail. Much friendlier than the catcalls on the street, the rough bumping into strangers on the sidewalk. 

A place of hope, for the white-picket fence, four person family and a dog dream that every American was thought to have. 

But that was traditional thinking, and Veronica never had much interest in tradition.

She walked through the fence gate, her eyes wandered to a particular set of slats that had looked bolder in comparison to the others, perhaps painted over or recently replaced. She walked the inside perimeter of the small fenced in area, her fingers sliding on the outside, traced the three metallic numbers that identified the house’s address.

922 Rose Avenue. 

She was home.

A smile curled on her lips as she unlocked the front door, quickly disarmed the security system. As she closed the door behind her, she noticed the extra deadbolt lock on the door. 

She set the keys on the kitchen counter, noticeably clean of any food debris or miscellaneous junk that so commonly occupied that space, though he did have yesterday’s newspaper neatly folded next to his phone. She admired the way he kept everything in its place, even had a stand for his mail, to which she added that day’s delivery. 

She opened the fridge, full of fresh vegetables and fruits, protein shakes, water bottles, a gallon of milk. She found jelly that she used to make a sandwich, but couldn’t seem to find any peanut butter. 

She briefly wondered if he was allergic as she picked off the crust, put it in a Ziploc bag for later. 

She brought the sandwich to the living room, a chess set laid out next to a pile of books on the coffee table. As she ate, she studied the contents of the pile of books. Birds and bugs. Bugs and birds. There were noticeably more books on birds than there were on bugs, both on the table and on the bookshelves against the wall. 

He had a few items of sports paraphernalia mixed in among books on forensics and other academics. There was a nice stereo surrounded with records and CDs of rock and a few country pieces, a video game system under a modestly sized television. She turned it on, it was set to the Discovery channel. The shelving beneath filled with DVDs, mostly documentaries and some action/adventure and comedies, his collection seemed to be that of a more mainstream taste. 

She washed her plate when she was finished eating, placed the plate on the drying rack in the sink and continued her investigation of the house. There were a few pictures of people that looked just like him on the wall, presumably his blood family, and a few of the people she had seen at crime scenes working with him, presumably his work family. He had a shadow box of a college Texas baseball team—saw his name in the newspaper article next to an aged baseball, a framed poster of the Dallas cowboys. 

She entered the smaller bedroom, which was organized as a sort of office space, more shelves holding more books, and a desk that held what she was really looking for, his laptop. She powered it on and came up to a roadblock, needed his password. 

It took her longer than normal to bypass, her normal trick of observing which keys were pressed the most and using the surroundings to infer what might create the user’s password was a bust, as most of his keys had been faded in. He must change his password frequently, unsurprising, given the article she found online of him having been the victim of stalking. 

“Crime Stopper Nick Stokes Stalked by Cable Installation Technician Nigel Crane.”

She wondered if he had noticed the irony in the man’s last name, a connection to the birds he seemed to hold an intense interest in. Perhaps Crane was insane enough to change his last name to something bird-like, to get closer to Nick. 

She’d love to meet that man some day.

She sighed as she studied the contents of the desk around her, various letters and articles piled on top of a book written by none other than Greg Sanders. Her eyebrows raised in intrigue as she opened it up, saw a heartfelt message written inside with his autograph.

“To Nick, who never stopped believing in me, always encouraged me, provided a much needed light to me in times of darkness. Love, G.” 

“How touching,” she mused as her attention moved to a letter framed on the wall, of recommendation for Nick to be promoted to lead CSI, signed by Gil Grissom.

A position he must not have gotten, or perhaps he did, and rose above it, as the last time they met each other, Veronica remembered that he held the title of Assistant Supervisor. Her fingers traced over a recent piece of paper that informed her that he no longer held that title, had been demoted to CSI level three, along with a formal warning indicating that he may have burned the rest of his career ladder at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. 

The paper was on top of a brochure of an entomology class in Hawaii, which took place a little over a month ago. He must have gone, because there was a certificate framed on the wall among various others. 

She read one of the headlines of the brochure, the word “scarab” stood out, as it was one of the most heavily featured topics of the training. 

With dots connecting in her mind, she tried a few combinations of the word along with the date of the course. 

She smiled, a small giddy giggle passed through her lips as she succeeded, the password was “Scarab91311.”

Though the idea of perusing the contents of his computer was appealing, her immediate next step was to connect a thumb drive she had kept in her pocket for this occasion, connect it to the computer. As the contents loaded, she brought the laptop to his bedroom. 

He had a canopy bed, but there were no curtains. She sat up against the backboard, stared up at the wood that was at the top of the four columns, separating the bed from the ceiling. 

Finally the drive loaded up, and the screen filled with a grainy, pixelated view of Nick at his new home, curled up on the floor, right where she left him. 

* * *

The smell of decomp was the one smell Greg would never be used to. No amount of Vaseline lathered under his nose could help, no amount of lemons in the shower could cover it up. Not for him, at least. 

He was surprised that Morgan seemed immune to it, carrying on with collecting evidence without so much as a grimace. He admired that about her, like so many things—her ability to persist through a rather quick recovery off of a fresh trauma.

A trauma that should have been  _ his.  _

A trauma that also, she seemed to be in denial over, having not been that open to Greg’s extension of his comforting hand, of his questions asking her if she were okay. 

No wonder she and Nick went out together, they were cut from the same cloth. 

“Hey, have you heard from Nick?” she asked him.

He looked up at her, shook his head. 

“Heard you two went out the other night,” he prodded, tried his best to mask the slight hint of jealousy in his voice.

“We did, he, uh, got sick or something. Hasn’t returned my call. Didn’t peg him…” her voice trailed off into a momentary pause, sent Greg’s heart into overdrive before she continued after a small struggle to obtain a lodged ring around the victim’s finger. “...for that type of a guy, you know? He was super polite, such a gentleman.”

“Yeah...well, that’s Nick for you.” 

“Which part, the gentleman or not calling back part?”

“Both. Kinda. I don’t know, he does...he does call back. He’s that guy who’ll cook you breakfast in the morning and sing you a little ditty about love and romance and all that nonsense. It’s just that...this time of year isn’t exactly, uh...easy for him.” 

“Oh.”

She cleared her throat, returned to work. Greg shut his eyes and frowned at himself. 

_ Dammit Greg, why are you oversharing details of Nick’s personal life? This isn’t your place. _

Nick would be furious if he ever found out what he just said. 

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not my place to say,” Greg refuted quickly, overcompensating for his betrayal of trust that Nick would hopefully never hear about. 

“Well, I’m glad he wasn’t alone then, that night I was with him. Hope he’s not alone now, either.”

Not wanting to keep his foot in his mouth any longer, he shut his mouth, though he held the same hope, knowing Nick’s trend of self-isolation, especially if he was unable to work. Reluctant to discuss his feelings and emotions, Greg had a feeling that even if he could somehow get through the thick walls that surrounded his heart, Nick wouldn’t open up to anybody, even him.

And that fact angered him more than anything.

Which is perhaps why he found it easy to open his mouth later on, over dinner with his girlfriend, his foot back in his mouth, oversharing even though he promised himself he wouldn’t.

“...and then he goes and gets his dumb ass suspended, which is just so...not Nick, you know? And I-I’m just worried, I guess. It’s sad, there just seems to be this huge divide in the team and it keeps getting deeper and deeper…”

“Aw, that’s really sad, sweetie,” she cooed to him, pushed his drink closer to him as she reached for his hand. “You have a big heart, Greg, bigger than most.” 

Greg blushed sheepishly at the compliment, took another sip of his drink. He stared at the woman in front of him, glowing under the radiant light above the table, her hair shone like an angel’s, eyes sparkled like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Her smile gleamed, made him feel like he was as light as a feather, her bright red lips smelled like cherries. 

“Speak for yourself, you’re the true sweetheart, here, listening to me ramble on about…” he trailed off, lost in her eyes. “I don’t deserve you, V.” 

“V and G, a match made in heaven,” she giggled. He could feel his cheeks burn, though the use of the nickname brought his mind reeling back to Nick.

It always went back to Nick.

“God, I wish he...I wish he would just get help for himself, you know? He’s so convinced that he doesn’t need therapy, can just live off of fresh food and exercise to keep a clear mind but...in our job, it-it takes  _ more  _ than that, and the things he’s been through…”

“What sorts of things?”

Greg chuckled, almost a little darkly as he rubbed his heavy eyes, too heavy for the rest of his body. He was starting to feel tired, took another sip of his drink to keep him up, though the ice had long since melted. 

“Need another drink?” she asked him as he kept drinking, drinking, drinking. He nodded, bobbing his head up and down in an exaggerated fashion. 

“Been stalked, kidnapped, shot, he, oh fuck, he was even thrown out of a  _ window,  _ for Christ’s sake! Can you believe that? He should be the one writing books, not me…”

“‘Sin City Secrets,’ right?”

“Yeah! That’s the one! You read it?”

“ _ Loved  _ it.”

“Nick did too…”

He buried his head in his hands for a few moments, another drink had landed in front of him when he opened them again. He pushed it to the side, shaking his head.

“Here I go again, I’m sorry, babe, I keep bringing this up—”

“It’s  _ okay, _ ” she affirmed, grabbing his hand again as she picked up her phone in the other. “Honestly, you seem like you really love this guy and care about him deeply.”

“I do,” he sighed. Suddenly the drink seemed a lot more appealing, and he took another sip. 

“You know, we actually, uh...we actually went—”

“Sorry, doll, I gotta cut this night short,” she interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips. Her eyes were fixated on her phone, a gleam that almost looked sinister, her pupils dilated. “I have to go feed my dog.”

“Oh, I can come with you—”

She shook her head, her eyes still transfixed on the screen to her phone, she dug her keys out of her purse, fingers waving over a small black box—a garage door opener, perhaps? She got up and walked over to his side of the table, cupped his cheek in her hand, the key ring around her finger pressing against his skin as she planted a quick kiss on his forehead. 

“I’m afraid he’s not ready to meet you yet. Soon, though. I  _ promise.” _


	5. Is This the Way It's Gotta Be?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He absolutely hated how she always seemed to come when he actually needed her to be there the most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say this chapter is just pain without plot but...actually, yeah, that's mostly what it is, minus a few lines here and there. 
> 
> I'm so sorry, Nick.

At some point, he had fallen asleep.

It was a restless sleep, falling between two dreams, one of his body being contorted to fit inside of a cage that was much too small for his body, and one of his leg getting pinned to a steel board with a giant stapler. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour at a time, waking up upon hearing the creaking of pipes, dripping of water, his own sharp breath as he clenched down the pain that pulsed through his entire body like a heartbeat. 

And every time he woke up, he found it harder and harder to distinguish dream from reality, suffering a sort of whiplash as he wavered between two cages, watching the staples on his thigh shrink and expand. The flesh around it was inflamed, he could feel a cold sweat on his forehead, he had a sinking feeling that it was infected. The bruised skin on his body swirled; yellow, black, blue. He managed to put on his shirt again with icy, sore arms, hugged himself to generate body heat. 

He wondered when he would wake up for good, presumably on the floor next to his bed at home, wrapped in a larger blanket than the one that barely covered half his body. 

Though his body growled at him from the pit of his stomach that yes, he was awake, as he sat himself up against the cold metal bed frame, the dreamlike haze dissipated, leaving him rooted in the reality of the dim, cold, wet stone cell.

His heavy pants of breath trailed off into a final sigh of frustration as he tried to take the collar off of his neck. He couldn’t seem to find the latch, perhaps hidden under the black box that didn’t seem to have any purpose. At first he thought perhaps it was one of the spray collars, but couldn’t feel any spout. He could feel a small bump, perhaps for a small LED light, indicating that maybe it was a tracking device. 

He folded up the blanket to create a makeshift cushion, pushed himself off the floor and onto the bed. He gripped the end of the bed as he stared down at his bare legs, his wounded thigh, could hear echoes of Doc Robbins discussing the effects of the infection and the stages of his bruising.

_ “I told him not to do anything stupid,”  _ Sara’s voice responded in a mournful tone, the volume was so clear that he looked up and around to match the body to the voice. 

But he was left alone, shaking himself out of auditory hallucinations. 

It was too early for that.

His imagination shifted to contemplate the question bleeding from his heart, did anybody even notice he was gone? His rough estimate based on his internal body clock told him it had been at least over 48 hours, he was due to go back to work after three days. 

He thought back to the smashing of his cell phone, wondered if there would be any voicemails lost in the tiny shards of plastic, asking him where he was, before telling him not to bother coming back. 

Did Morgan have enough of a handle on him to infer that something wasn’t right, the night he left her at the bar? Was this some sort of cosmic payback for his abandonment of Catherine years ago? Or would Morgan think he just had too much to drink, went home after falling ill? 

It was his fault, anyway, for not reaching out to a more knowledgeable shoulder to cry on, though not for lack of trying. He felt a blade poisoned with a mixture of spiteful rage and betrayal drive through his chest as he remembered the last words Greg said to him, during a rare night where Nick was wandering around in a dark enough recess of his mind to  _ talk  _ about it. 

_ “Nick...you...you gotta get help, man. I can listen, all you want, but these feelings aren’t going to go away if you don’t talk through them—” _

_ “I am talking through them, with you, right here, right now _ —”  _ he had protested. He knew he should have just called Grissom instead, the only voice that wasn’t shouting at him to go to therapy.  _

_ “ _ — _ with a professional,” Greg emphasized. “That can help you muddle through them. This is something you have to do for yourself, and I mean that as a friend.” _

Another form of payback, as he remembered pushing Warrick in a similar way for an entirely different situation, for him to get help for himself, and it evidently didn’t help him just as Greg words did nothing but injure Nick’s already damaged psyche. Maybe he was a fool for thinking that the power of friendship would conquer the demons running rampant in his mind, maybe he did need some sort of professional exterminator to snuff them out once and for all.

Or maybe he just needed to bust out of the cage he kept himself locked in, especially when there was ample room for escape. 

Such as a two-foot high gap, that he could easily fit through, if he could just climb the fence wall in front of him. 

And while the pain in his thigh was intense, it wasn’t  _ entirely  _ unbearable. 

He stood up, it only took one limp-step to reach out and wrap his fingers into the metal loops. He shuddered as he realized just how  _ small  _ the cage was, shut his eyes before the walls closed in on his body. 

_ Stone walls can’t move. Stone walls can’t move. Stone walls can’t move. _

He opened his eyes, gulped down the final affirmation to himself that the walls were  _ not  _ closing in on him, although as he reached one hand up to start his ascent, he wondered if he should have kept those thoughts in front of him, used the adrenaline to assist in his climb. 

He lifted himself up using his good leg first, curling his toes and wishing he had shoes instead. He felt like some sort of monkey that he observed in the zoo back in Texas, suddenly felt guilty for his eagerness to observe the captivity of those poor animals. 

He was thankful that he didn’t have an audience of all ages watching him as he struggled to climb the fence that was only maybe a foot or two taller than him, a feat that he would normally accomplish with ease, completely dressed and with his dignity intact. 

And without staples in his thigh that were just threatening to pop out of his skin, slowing his movement and causing him to pause at the top, with one arm already hanging over the metal bar that capped the fence. As lungs caught up with him, he moaned as he tried to lift the leg over the top, telling himself that this would be the hardest part of the mountain, that going down would be  _ much  _ easier than going up…

He had just lifted his thigh when he felt his muscles contract—the grip he had on the top bar of the fence somehow tightened more, almost made his bones pop through his knuckles. He felt an odd sort of tickling sensation spread through his body, waving surges of pain washing over him. He gurgled, trying to shout for the pain to stop, but once it did, the contractions released without warning, his grip slipped, and he fell off of the fence, back onto the floor of the cage. 

His back had impacted against the borders of the bed frame, he felt as if his chest was about to explode as his spine balanced on the invisible spike he was impaled on. His sharp gasps for breath were lined with hoarse croaks of pain, pain,  _ pain!  _

He just wanted it all to end.

He lost all sense of time, every passing second lasting somewhere between an actual second and an hour, trapped in this state of limbo before he started to moan for help, though even his mind couldn’t conjure up any comforting scenarios of the team coming to his aid. 

Instead, when help finally did come, it was in the form of Veronica, a bag slung around her arm, a coy smile on her face. 

He absolutely  _ hated  _ how she always seemed to come when he actually needed her to be there the most. 

“Well, I hope we learned our lesson,” she began as she unlocked the door to the cage. His eyes were nearly bulging out of their sockets as he saw a small attachment to her keys that she pointedly dangled in front of his face. “On what happens when you try to do something without my permission.”

It was then that Nick realized what the black box around his collar was for.

A  _ shock  _ collar.

She raised her eyebrows, tilted her head putting a finger behind her ear. 

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“For...what…?” he gritted his teeth together, suppressing a whine as he tried to sit up, back away, but his body was immobile, a twitching rag doll. 

“For your apology.”

He waved over his dry lips with his tongue before biting down on his lower lip, pursing his upper lip over it. 

Her expression darkened, and she unfurled her hand that held the keys, and struck him across the face.

He spit out a groan as she once again dangled the small box on her keys, her thumb now rubbing over a small button. 

“I’m not going to ask again.”

“How...did you even know...I was trying to escape?” he dared to ask in a flinch before the button was pressed down, and his body was sent into an electrifying spasm of pain. 

“Oh, Nicky…” she shook her head as she ignored his screams, stroked his cheek once the shock stopped. “I’m  _ always  _ watching.”

His vision returned in an explosion of inverted bubbles, he looked up and there were two Veronica's sizing him up with her eyes, noticeably staring at his crotch which he became overly sensitive about, tried to cover up with his shirt. 

“I brought you some new underwear, as I can see you neglected to use the bowl to conduct your  _ business,”  _ she said with a reverberating giggle as she threw a pair of briefs carelessly at his face. “Go ahead, change them now.”

He continued to stare at the two Veronica's who were now merging into one, his head stung from the crossing of his eyes. He could feel drool oozing out of the corner of his mouth as he squinted at her. 

“Oh, what’s the matter, are you shy?” she mocked him. “Go ahead, I won’t look.”

She covered her face with her hands, though Nick could see her spread open her fingers so that she could “peek.” He didn’t budge.

“Have it your way, the smell will bother you  _ much more  _ than it will bother me,” she shrugged. She dug out another item from her bag, a small plastic baggie filled with bread crusts.

“Here, figured you might be hungry.”

“I’m not,” he lied, though his stomach screamed that yes, he was, so very hungry. 

She crouched down, opening the bag and taking out a handful of the crusts. 

“Easy way,” she told him, sticking a piece into her own mouth, chewing and swallowing. “Or hard way.”

She used her free hand to force open his mouth, stuffed the food into his mouth, keeping her hand over his lips to force it down his throat. He struggled, tried to use his tongue to push it away, but his body wouldn’t cooperate with his defiance, and the bread crusts slid down his throat and into his stomach. 

He swallowed hard, gasping for gulps of air as Veronica massaged his throat, ensuring the food passed through. 

“Can’t have you starving to death, silly,” she scoffed in an overly cheery tone. She pulled out a water bottle, splashed it into his face. “Or drying out on me, either.” 

He sputtered, some of the water making it through into body through his mouth and nose, the rest of it dripping down his neck, into his shirt, which was grabbed roughly once he was close to recovery. 

_ Oh god, where is she taking me now?  _

A question she must have inferred that ran through his mind, as she looked down on him with a wide smile. 

“I’m putting you in time-out. Not only because you didn’t apologize, but I am only one person, after all, and don’t want you to get jealous of all the attention I’ll be giving to some of my other toys.”

She kicked him with the side of her foot, prodding him into the hallway. He tried to stand up, only to fall down on his knees as another shock spread through his body.

“I can do this all day,” she mused to him.

He looked up at her as his heart ran a marathon, his body shaking uncontrollably, his eyes burning, his brain on the edge of bulging out of his skull. 

“So can I,” he growled at her through his teeth. 

He reached out to the fence ahead of him, pulled himself up.

She shocked him again. 

“Crawl,” she told him.

“I won’t,” he bit back.

She shocked him again. 

_ “Craaaaawwwwwl,”  _ she enunciated in an exaggerated fashion, screaming in his ear as she held him by the back of his neck.

“Fuck off,” he spit out, earned him yet another shock.

She shocked him again, and again, and again until he expended all of his energy and couldn’t stand up, couldn’t even talk back to her. 

He would have refused to move even if he could, he felt like his bones were splitting apart. She left him lying on the floor for a few minutes, he watched as she sauntered down the hallway, into the small room where she had grabbed the dog catching hook. He blinked, and watched on a slanted angle as she took handfuls of supplies and tossed them outside of the room. He blinked, and she was standing over him, reaching towards him. 

She picked him up and dragged him backwards, away from the cell, towards the darkened room. At the other end of the hallway, he swore he could see a small pile of three bodies, tangled on top of each other.

Once they reached the room, she dropped his body at the threshold to pull the string that illuminated the surroundings, completely empty, save one thing in the center of the room.

A cage that didn’t just eerily look like, but actually was a giant bird cage. 


	6. Ring of Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Veronica's birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonder why I had all of those questions about staples the other day? This is why. Every time I think I've done my worst...I continue to out-do myself.
> 
> Warnings for some squeamish imagery and complete, utter humiliation.

He’s seen many people quit in his tenure as a supervisor, even had to force one of his best people to quit, but there was something about the resignation letter resting his hands that just...didn’t make sense. It wasn’t deserved, wasn’t  _ predicted. _

The warning signs were almost always apparent, people being unsatisfied with their pay, moving to another city or state for a fresh start. Quitting because of burn out, or a death or trauma hits them so hard they realize they can’t do the job anymore. It took a certain type of person to work and stay with this job. He had seen people work the job for twenty years before quitting, while some couldn’t last two weeks.

He didn’t know Nick Stokes, not really. He had just started this job a little over a month ago, knew that on some level, there would be some push back, some hesitation in a well-established team accepting him into a position that was previously held by someone who got an unfortunate demotion. Played the “bad cop” role with Nick once or twice (which made him feel like he was grounding his son,) to make sure that his behavior met his expectations as a supervisor, though really, at the end of the day, he would rather wait for a field report if it meant he was getting a fully detailed one, instead of a half-assed one created in a time constraint. 

He admired Nick, he really did. Told Ecklie that from day one. He admired his empathy, his ability to connect to the human element of their casework. Nick was the beating heart of the team, had a strong sense of work ethic about him, caught whatever DB threw at him with fast reflexes, even if he didn’t like it. 

And in the short amount of time they’ve gotten to know each other, he knew enough about Nick to know that one thing he was  _ not,  _ was a quitter. If he was really upset about his demotion, he would have surely left by now. Catherine would have too, for that matter. There was the chance that his suspension hit him hard, but surely wouldn’t have hit him hard enough to throw in the towel altogether. 

He didn’t go to Conrad right away. He could already hear words muttered through pursed lips,  _ “Can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.”  _

Instead, he went to Catherine. 

“What do you think?” 

Catherine’s mouth gaped open, a small shake to her head, but her eyes gave away a heartbreaking truth that DB was afraid of.

“I...don’t know,” she sighed. 

“How long have you known him?”

“Over, uh...over twelve years, now.”

“You mentioned the other day, that was the first time he got suspended. Think he would have taken it that hard? Honestly?” 

“Honestly, uh...I, I don’t know, anymore.” 

She tossed the letter back on his desk, put a hand to her forehead.

“He hasn’t been himself lately,” she admitted. 

“I kinda got that vibe from him. Any particular reason?”

“He’s...been through a lot. This time last year, he was kidnapped. Again.”

“ _ Again?”  _ DB asked incredulously. In his pure curiosity of knowing who was on his team, he had read a few files, a few headlines that involved his CSIs. He knew that Nick was on the other side of the gun more than once in his life, even knew about one of the abductions—and the fact that there were  _ multiple  _ had saddened him, softened him during the times he had to play the supervisor card with Nick.

“We never caught her.”

“Was he…?”

“No,” Catherine answered immediately. “Just drugged and stabbed.”

The casual tone of Catherine’s voice frightened DB more than he’d care to admit that the way she said  _ “just”  _ implied to both of them that things could have been much, much worse, and that this was just a normal day at the office in the life of Nick Stokes. 

“What about that suspect, you think he’d go after him?” DB asked, changing the subject. The topic of the effects of Nick’s trauma would be put on hold for the moment, as DB replays the scene in his mind. A rabid dog, roughly grabbing and shoving a suspected man against a wall, sloppy drool dribbling down his chin, eyes overtaken by the same darkness he’s seen in killers. 

Catherine’s eyes widened, she covered her mouth with a hand, and the look on her face told DB to dial Brass’ number on speed dial, as she dialed Nick’s. 

* * *

It was a stupid idea, really.

Probably wasn’t going to work.

The lock was too big.

Or perhaps the staples were too small.

But he had no other option. 

In his struggle to avoid being locked in the human-sized bird cage, he had gotten the idea as one of the staples got caught in the wire, pulled out in excruciating fashion as Veronica shoved him through the door.

“Quit whining, we’ll replace it when I’m done working.”

The flare of pain had distracted him long enough for the door to close and a small padlock to be attached, locking him in with no option to get out. She left before he could even properly protest against it, the words trapped somewhere between his screams and struggle for air.

She kept the light on for him, though the bulb was not bright enough to show him the edges of the room, he felt like he was trapped in a seemingly endless void with the outline of a door frame in front of him. 

And endless void, and yet he was confined within it. 

The cage didn’t have walls, and yet, he felt the space closing in on him. 

He couldn’t even stand up to his full height, couldn’t stretch out, felt his joints cracking and cramping as he was resigned to sit, hugging his legs together on the cold steel floor of the cage in soiled clothing. 

There was nothing beyond the bars that he could reach for, and even if he could, his fingers just barely fit through the space between the vertical bars. He tested to see if he could even reach the lock, found that yes, he would be able to unlock it with an invisible key between his thumb and forefinger, though the angle was just a little awkward, having a bar squeezing into the webspace between, the unforgiving metal rubbing up against his skin roughly, creating a throbbing blister. It was taking him long enough to “unlock” the lock with a hypothetical key, it’d take him even longer with his improvised staple key—if that would even work. 

He closed his eyes, thought back to the all of the times he had to pull out a splinter from his skin. He tried to equate the staple removal to that level of pain, to that menial task. 

But instead, the pain was more equal to that of a burn from a fire.

As he began to tug on the first one, the sound of a cry and sharp breath tangled together and he realized he was going to need to figure out a way to cover up the oncoming noises of pain, or else Veronica might come in and punish him.

_ “I’m always watching…”  _ her words echoed in his head and he frantically looked around, realizing that he would also need to cover up what he was trying to do, somehow, in case she was actually watching him try to escape.

_ “Love...is a burnin’ thing…”  _ he began to sing softly, trying to hear the music instead of the sound of his panicked body, screaming at him,  _ no, no, no don’t do it! _

He closed his eyes again, envisioned a nice, long drive with the windows rolled down, the stereo on high volume, the sun on his face, his hand waving through the wind.

_ “And it makes...a fiery ring.”  _

He hooked his fingernail underneath the staple, began to tug again with short, gentle movements. He kept his twitching thigh steady with his other hand, leaving more bruises on his skin from the pressure of his fingers. 

“ _ Bound,”  _ he gritted through his clenched teeth, seething air before he tugged again. “ _ By wild desire…” _

The gentle attempts were not going to work. He needed to just rip it out altogether, though that runs the risk of a scream of pain.

_ “I fell into…a ring...of FIHIGHEAAAAAH!”  _ volume and pitch increased, his song turned into more of a screech, but he pursed his lips into his mouth, trapped his tongue behind his teeth as he ripped the staple out of his flesh, raised his bloody fingers in front of his eyes, holding up his prize. 

He waited until his breathing settled, until the tears stopped burning through his eyes, before continuing the song. 

_ “I-fell-into-a-burnin’-ring-of-fire,”  _ he sang quickly, to get himself back into the song. He nodded at the staple held between two bloodied fingers, removed the vice grip from his thigh to straighten the angle as carefully as he could without breaking it.  _ “I went down, down, down…” _

The repetition of the word made him realize how truly diminished he felt. Somehow, he suddenly felt that the cage was dangling, as it began to rock back and forth through the air. Perhaps the cage was smaller than he thought,  _ he  _ was smaller than he thought. 

_ “And the flames rose higher…” _

Or was it that  _ he  _ was rocking back and forth? He felt light headed, the threat of passing out increasing in probability with every blink. The bars were pressing up against him, closer, and closer, he couldn’t move in the tight space...

_ “And it burns, burns, burns...the ring of fire…”  _

He closed his eyes, gulped down the rising tornado of his stomach contents. He gripped the bars of the cage with his free hand. Waited for the rocking to slow, and then come to a halt. Breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold. 

_ “The ring of fire.”  _

He resumed the song as he inserted the unfurled staple into the lock, but his previous doubt was confirmed, it was too thin. 

He would need  _ two  _ staples, perhaps.

He carefully placed the staple on the floor of the cage, so as to not lose it, and returned to his grip on the now bleeding thigh. His fingers were getting sticky from the drying blood. He wiped the sweat dripping into his eyes before he started to work on the next staple, on the other side of his incision. Between the two he took out, the one that was lost in transit, there would be two remaining to keep the wound together. He made a mental note, he would need to be careful in his attempt to escape. 

_ “The taste...of love is sweet…” _

It was easier the second time around, as he knew what to expect and his mind filled with scenarios of what he would do once he exited the cage.

_ “When hearts...like ours meet…”  _

First thing he would do? Stand up. All the way up. Stretch out the aches in his body, loosen up his joints. 

_ “I fell for you like a child…” _

He hummed the beat of the song and picked at the staple to the rhythm. 

He would open the door—although, what if the door was locked? It probably was. He wondered if she almost  _ expected  _ him to escape. 

_ “Ohhhhhh,” _ he groaned as the staple was evicted from his skin.  _ “But the fire went wi-iiiiiiiiild…” _

He allowed recovery time as he looked around again for any signs of cameras. Surely she would have figured out what he was doing by now. 

If she really cared.

But she did, she did care. Cared enough to fix up his leg. Cared enough to feed him, give him water. Cared enough to  _ protect  _ him, even from himself.

The door was probably locked, then. 

But at least he could get out of the cage before it crushed him entirely. 

His blood coated fingers did not make it easy, both staples sliding against his wet skin, against each other, making it difficult to maneuver. He kept singing, finding an odd sense of calm in the action, as it had helped him stay sane many years ago. 

But as he kept fiddling, kept repeating the chorus, the room began to expand, he felt like he was falling backwards, but he wasn’t. He had shifted uncomfortably, pulled himself against the bars, against the pull of the void behind him. 

At one point, he thought he had finally gotten the staples into the lock, swore he could even feel a click, his singing got faster, higher,  _ happier _ —

_ “And it burns, burns, burns,” _ his lip danced over his lips, he blinked rapidly, squinting at the blood and the lock and the metal.  _ “The ring of fire...the ring of…” _

And then, the staples finally slid through his bloody fingers, and onto the floor, where he couldn’t pick them up again. 

“Fuck!” he shouted. “No, no, no!” 

He fell into a familiar fit of disbelief, his limbs flailing helplessly against the bars of the cage, the skin of his palm imprinted by the bars as he slapped his hands against it, using a burst of adrenaline to try and force his way out of the cage. 

He thought back once again to the monkeys in the zoo, and realized that just like them, he wouldn’t be able to get out. 

“It’s for their safety, son,” his father had told him when he posed the question at the age of eight, of why all the animals were separated and put into cages. “It’s a dangerous world out there, if they were left to roam, they might get hurt.”

His tantrum settled as he forced his eyes to stay open, because the monkey in the zoo had now turned to a same-sized version of him, climbing the confines of the cage as his eight year old self laughed at the novelty. 

_ “I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire!” _ he started to sing so loudly to drown out the images and noises in his head, forcing out any cringed echoes of  _ “dance, monkey, dance!”,  _ he didn’t even care if Veronica heard him at this point.  _ “I went down, down, down, and the flames rose higher!” _

But as the door creaked open, he realized, a little part of him  _ did  _ care.

“Oh, how the caged bird sings,” she sighed, instantly causing Nick to stop his song. A wide smile crept across her lips as she adopted a southern accent with a wink. “Well, don’t stop now, baby, c’mon!” 

He sniffled up short bursts of air as he shrank back into the cage, trying in a futile effort to get away from her as she stepped closer, and closer, and closer. His heart rising far above his head, then sinking deep beneath the earth in rapid fashion. 

“You know...it’s my birthday today.” 

She stood in front of the cage, arms crossed, legs spread, waiting. Expecting. Staring into his eyes with malicious intent. 

“Well, aren’t you gonna wish me a happy birthday?” 

He stared right back at her, his eyes narrowed, a frown on his face. They stood in this stalemate for what seemed like hours, but was in reality only a few minutes, before Veronica unfurled her arms, dangled her keys in front of the cage. 

“Happy...birthday…” he shivered, carefully eyeing her finger that traced the button that operated his collar. 

“Sing.” 

“What?”

“Sing the song for me.”

“No. I’m not...not gonna fuckin' sing for you…” he dared to growl at her, shifted his body so that he was turning away, but his eyes remained locked on her fingers, on the button.

“SING FOR ME, NICKY!” she howled, and before he had time to respond, a shock shook his body inside the cage, and he flailed helplessly, this time not on his own accord, muscles contracting, releasing, contracting, releasing,  _ cramping  _ so harshly he thought his bones would explode from the pressure.

She waited for him to recover, an eyebrow raised, her arms folded once more. 

“Well?” she asked as his ragged breathing slowed in pace. “You have such a beautiful voice, you know…”

“Sorry, p-performance is all sold out…” he panted. “With no encore.”

She pressed the button again, and he felt his spine nearly snap into two halves. She began to circle the cage like a shark in the water. 

“Didn’t hear that, what did you say?” she asked once his screams faded out. She crouched down to meet eye level with his body slumped on the floor. 

“I’m  _ not... _ singing...for... _ you…” _

“You might want to reconsider that, my sweet little Nicky,” she began, caressing the button in one hand, poking her fingers through the cage in the other to touch his hair, his cheek, bop him on the nose before he flinched away.

“You don’t want to  _ disappoint  _ me now, do you? You’ve already disappointed everyone else in your life, and you won’t like what happens when you disappoint  _ me.” _

She jabbed him roughly before standing up to her full height, relishing the struggle to repress his look of terror, as the realization crept in that this was not going to end in his favor. 

But he had to keep fighting. 

She frowned as he tried to stand up again, allowed his head to bump up against the top of the dome, pressed his forehead against the curve of the bars. 

_ “Fuck. You.”  _ he hissed, sticking up his middle finger between the bars before she pressed the button again with a look of pure vengeance in her eyes. He wondered if he would even be able to sing, if his vocal chords didn’t tear apart, first. 

The shock lasted longer than the others, the recovery took longer, his jumbled sensations took longer to return to his control. 

All the while, the more and more he came to terms with the fact that, no matter how much he fought, the pain would not end until she  _ allowed  _ it to end. 

He couldn’t wait for the battery in the collar to run out, because it probably wouldn’t, not for a long time. He didn’t even have time to ruminate how it was an odd twist of fate, that he was now  _ eager  _ for a battery to run out.

He couldn’t wait for the shocks to just kill him, because she wouldn’t let him get to that point, would probably just find a new way to inflict pain. 

He couldn’t wait for her to get “bored” and just walk away, because she wouldn’t, seemingly constantly stimulated by just  _ staring  _ at him. 

He couldn’t wait for help to come, because if they hadn’t found him by now, they probably never would.

He gulped down whatever shreds of dignity he thought he had left, tucked them away in a box somewhere deep within his scrambled mind. He tried to shake off the cringe that was twitching at his neck, his hands, his thighs, as he once again saw her finger rest on the button. He held up his vibrating hands in a nonverbal plea,  _ I surrender! _

With a tremble of terror and dread in his voice, of what awaited him if he messed this up, he began to sing. 

_ “Ha...ppy...birth...day...to y-you,”  _ he rasped, he felt a sobbing heave lurch his body forward, the tears that had started out of pain now burning with humiliation. His fingers gripped the bars of the cage. “ _ Happy birthday...to...youuuu…” _

As Veronica squealed in delight, clapping the keys together in her hand, Nick realized just how  _ long  _ this song was, reinforced by the painfully slow delivery of the song.

And he was singing as  _ fast  _ as he could. 

_ “Happy...birthday...dear…”  _ the words made him want to vomit. “ _ Veronicaaa…” _

Veronica was jumping gleefully, giggling, the movement was making him nauseous. He almost smiled, because he could finally feel himself starting to pass out, the tension in his body reaching a climax just  _ begging  _ for release. 

_ “Haaaaaappy...bir’day...to...y-yuh...ouuuuuu…” _

He allowed himself to collapse into a full cry, curled up on the floor of the cage as Veronica cooed at him, stroking the back of his head with her fingers. 

“Why, thank you, Nick, that was so cute!”

He felt her fingers tug at his hair before they disappeared altogether, heard a  _ click-click!  _ as the light above him was extinguished, the only source now coming from the open doorway, which Veronica was now walking towards. Right before she crossed the threshold, she spun around, though he didn’t see the spin, one minute her back was turned, the next she was facing him. He was getting dizzy from the whiplash, begged for the dark void to swallow him whole, but she wouldn’t let that happen until she got the last word. 

“But, you know," she began, as if she were pointing out that the sky was blue. "...You'll have to sing it again, because my birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”


	7. It's Never Quite As It Seems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The horror continues: Greg gets some heartbreaking news as Veronica has a dream come true, but not quite in the way she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, when even I feel like I've gone too far in something...I outshine my previous torment.
> 
> also, just as the title says, it's never quite as it seems.
> 
> especially in regards to the ending.

Nick was curled up on the floor of the cage, hugging his shirt to his chest as she entered the room and turned on the light. He looked up to her with wide eyes, his fingers wrapping around the cage bars as she unlocked the lock. She then unhooked the latches to open the door for the first time in three days.

“You can come out now,” she told him, beckoning him forward with her finger. He cautiously crawled out of the cage, knelt at her feet.

“Hu...h-ha…” he was muttering in low breath. “Happy birthday...to you...”

No...not muttering.

He was _ singing. _

A wide smile spread across her face as he looked up to her, a gleam in his eyes that told her that she did it, because this time? She didn’t even have to ask. 

She broke Nick Stokes.

And not only that, she shattered him, really. 

And all the scattered pieces of himself now _ fully _ belonged to _ her. _

She crouched down, traced a finger up his neck, up his chin, setting his head to look up at her as a wide smile spread across her face. Her finger continued to trace his jawline, reached his ear and put her finger behind it, gently turned his head to the side.

She crept closer to his face, warm exhales landing on his cheek, slithering into his ear.

He didn’t flinch. 

“I need your help with something,” she whispered into his ear. He turned his head to nuzzle her’s, but she drew away. “And you know, since you’re being such a good boy…”

She unlocked the collar, revealing the bruised ring around his neck, skin singed from the shocks. She almost felt bad, as he let out an exhale of deep release. 

It was a test, to ensure that he was actually going to obey, and he passed.

“Come along,” she wiggled her finger for him to follow as she pranced out the room.

He crawled behind her.

She shot glances back occasionally to ensure he wasn’t going to try and do something stupid like stand up or trip her, but the longer they went, the more reassured she became. He was crawling with his head down, with a slow pace as if he really didn’t _ want _ to crawl, but he seemed too broken at this point to really care. He understood his place in her world—in _ their _world, now.

She was so proud.

She brought him in to the “operating room,” where her latest victim, Phillip, the one who had nearly gotten away from her, was kneeling on the ground. Well, he was _ supposed _to be kneeling, but he must have rocked himself over to his side, even with his hands tied behind his back and to his feet. He had a face mask on, he had proved to be quite the biter when she captured him. 

She looked to Nick and rolled her eyes before picking Phillip up and placing him upright, brushing her hand down his suit jacket to straighten it out. She then grabbed a chair from the corner of the room, dragged it over in front of the man. She snapped her fingers and pointed to Nick, then to the chair.

He got the message and sat down hurriedly, put his hands on the arm rests, awaiting further instructions. 

She pulled a tie from the table that Nick had occupied just a few days earlier, handed it to him.

“I can never get it right,” she sighed. She grabbed a dampened cloth from the same counter, placed it on the arm of the chair along with a razor blade and shaving cream. “So, if you wouldn’t mind, darling…and clean him up for me, too. I don’t like beards.”

She circled the two men as Nick looped the tie around Phillip’s neck, her fingers stroke the blades of scalpels and knives she had laid out on the counter, she felt the urge to slide one across Nick’s skin, into Phillip’s heart, but she resisted. Perhaps later, if the sale didn’t go as planned.

“I was scared at first, when they tried to possess me. To break me. For a while, I even fell for it, actually. Fell into their demands, bowing to their every whim, because I needed them. I needed them to feed me, clean me, take care of me because I was their _ precious little pet, _” she added in a sneer. “But one day, they asked for my help, and I gave it to them and realized that really, they needed me more than I needed them. And once I realized I had that power over them...I was free.”

“I fell in love with that feeling of power. Being in control. To manipulate someone’s body, to _ own _them,” she reflected as she watched Nick’s eyes flare as he unlatched the muzzle, slapped Phillip to get him to stop whimpering and moving when he began to lather the man’s face in shaving cream. 

She crouched down next to the chair as he wiped the excess cream off of his hands. She took the razor blade and pressed it gently into Nick’s chin, guided his head towards hers to meet him in the eyes. She switched over the blade in her hand, offering him the handle of the razor after gently cutting his skin.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?”

She was awakened before her dream before Nick could answer by the sound of a doorbell.

“Ugh...just when it was getting good,” she muttered as she hopped out of bed, and answered the door with more than mild irritation. “What?”

A dark haired woman dressed in a CSI uniform and sunglasses stood at the door, her mouth gaped open as Veronica slouched against the door frame.

“Uhm...hi, who are you?” the woman asked.

“Could ask you the same thing. What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Nick Stokes.”

“Well, you came to the right place. This is his house, after all.”

“Yeah, _ his _house, so who are you and why are you here?”

“I’m his girlfriend.”

The woman peeled off her sunglasses, a mixture of shock and confusion plastered the features of her face.

“Girlfriend?” 

“Yeah,” Veronica scoffed as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. She nodded to the name patch on the woman’s vest. “Sidle...You must be Sara, then, right?”

“That’s correct,” Sara crossed her arms. “Is Nick home?”

She peered over Veronica’s shoulder, and Veronica relished the look on Sara’s face as she discovered the packed bags behind her.

“You just missed him, sweetheart. He’s doing some errands before our trip to Texas.”

“Texas, huh?”

“Yeah, he just quit his job, wanted to go visit his family for a bit. I suppose you knew that already, didn’t you?” Veronica prodded with a twisted smile.

“No...I didn’t know that,” Sara gulped while shaking her head. “Any idea what time he’ll be back?” 

“Not quite, poor baby, he left his phone at home,” Veronica clicked her tongue. “He’s so silly sometimes, you know?” 

“Right…” 

Sara began to walk away, before she spun around quickly and walked back towards the door.

“I-I’m sorry, how long have you two been dating? He never mentioned a girlfriend to me.” 

“Well, I guess there’s a lot of things you don’t know about him, then, huh, _ sweetheart?” _

“Guess I don’t,” Sara winced before she walked back towards her car and drove away as Veronica waved after her.

She walked back into the house and back into the bedroom, where her latest toy was stirring.

“Who was that?” he yawned. 

“Oh, nobody, Phillip.”

She opened the closet door and pushed through the jackets and shirts. 

“You sure your roommate won’t mind me borrowing one of his suits?” he asked, staring at his previously soiled clothing on the floor. 

“No, Nicky’s really cool about helping people when they need it,” she bragged. Phillip got up from the bed and walked into the kitchen to presumably brew a pot of coffee. 

“Nick Stokes…” Phillip called out, having read a piece of his mail that was left on the counter. “Hey, wasn’t that the guy who was buried alive a few years back?” 

Veronica crept up behind him, wrapped her hands around his waist, rested her chin on his shoulder while she stood on her toes to reach his height, one leg sliding up to wrap around his own.

A spider, wrapped around her prey. 

“Buried alive? Really?” she played dumb, having read articles about the ordeal online, but used this opportunity to pour a small vial into his coffee and relish in the repetition of details she had read over and over. “Tell me more.” 

* * *

Greg woke up groggily, his head feeling like a cement block that he strained to lift from his pillow. His breath reeked of alcohol, his limbs were tingling from numbness. The temples of his forehead throbbed to the ghostly echoes of the club he and V had haunted the night before, but this felt worse than a hangover, _ he _felt worse than just a hangover. 

He struggled to remember the actual events of the night, there was a big, black spot on the film reel running through his head, he didn’t even remember coming home. 

And home _ alone, _too, as his vision focused on the untouched half of his bed. 

He was about to call out for her, preparing to send a text to make sure she was okay when his phone went off. 

He was able to lift his head just high enough, reached his hand out far enough to tilt his phone and look at the message on his screen.

The contents were enough to get him to sit up completely, but slouch back against the wall, weighed down with a broken heart as he read a text from Sara.

_ Did you know Nick has a girlfriend? _

* * *

Nick was  _ trembling _ , he was so cold, so thirsty, so hungry, so tired. 

And yet, he couldn’t sleep. His stomach gave up at grumbling at him. His tongue did its best to keep his mouth warm and wet, but his mouth was as dry as the desert itself. He hugged his shirt to his chest, curled his legs into himself, wishing he hadn’t undid the staples as he examined his infected wound. 

Three days locked in the human sized bird cage, and he felt smaller than ever before, as Veronica once again boomed into the room, standing in front of the cage with a manic glee hidden behind a blank expression of stone.

She took out the keyring that he came to fear, his eyes hyper-focused on the black box that acted as judge, jury and executioner. 

He wondered how many more shocks it would take to kill him.

But instead, to his surprise, she unlocked the lock of the cage, unhooked the latches, and opened the door.

“You can come out now,” she told him, waving him forward.

He didn’t move.

“C’mon,” she beckoned in a high voice, started to  _ whistle  _ for him. 

He still didn’t move. 

She huffed in disappointment and crouched down, reaching into the cage, grabbed Nick by his shirt and pulled him out as roughly as he was shoved in. She released his shirt and drew her finger up his neck, his chin, forcing him to look at her before she pinched his ear. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He knew what she was referring to, and he was torn between giving it to her or withholding it, even if the latter option would lead to another shock. 

Or more time in the cage. 

“What day is it, Nicky?” Veronica asked as she tugged on his ear, making him grunt in pain. 

_ Wish I knew, actually.  _

“Y-your...birthday…” he groaned in a raspy voice, feeling the bile rise through the slits in his dry, scarred throat. 

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” she giggled, before she crouched down. He flinched away as he felt her hot breath enter his ear and spread through his skull.

“You can sing to me later. I need your help with something…” 

She stood up, snapped her fingers and pointed to the hallway.

“Come along,” she ordered in a firm tone. 

He pushed himself off of the ground, onto his feet. She waited until he had stood to his full height, though he couldn’t quite keep himself up with his good leg, was shifting his weight to avoid the bad one. 

And then she pressed the button, and he fell to the ground as the collar vibrated, and his body was shaken, all of the air sucked out of his lungs. His brain bubbled, he wondered if it was about to explode when suddenly, everything  _ stopped _ , and he was left to writhe on the floor, coughing. 

“This is  _ not  _ how I thought this was going to go,” Veronica muttered as she wrapped the hook around his neck again, began to drag him before he fully recovered. “You’re disappointing me, Nicky…”

He allowed himself to be dragged, this time from behind, the bird cage got smaller, and smaller, and smaller before it faded from view. His head lolled to the side to try and get a good look at the cages lining the walls that were now occupied with Veronica’s other toys, other  _ dolls,  _ he noted as he made the morbidly grim comparison to the stands used for display dolls—she had three people held up by a metal stand, their hands tied behind their backs reaching down to their feet, fearful, tearful expressions on their faces. He recognized the look in their eyes as he was dragged past them, their lips quivering as if to say something, but the veins popping out of their skin clued him into the fact that she probably used the paralytic on them, to be able to manipulate them and keep them frozen in such a way. 

His heart filled with dread as they moved past his old cage and towards the so-called “operating room,” and he feared that she was about to do the same to him, put him under the paralytic again. 

Instead, she brought him into the room and dropped him, directing her attention to another man that was in the room. She sat the man upright, winked at Nick as she patted his chest, flattening out the wrinkles in the suit jacket the man was dressed in. He winced as a chair was scraped across the floor, planted in front of the man, before snapping her fingers at Nick again, pointed to the chair.

He hesitantly dragged himself to the chair, not a full crawl, but not a full stand. It felt weirder than he would care to admit, being able to sit upright on the seat of a chair, even though it was cold under the back of his thighs. He nervously clutched the arm rests, unsure of what was about to happen, keeping his eyes on Veronica as she fiddled with a tie in her hands.

“I can never get it right,” she told him, playfully waving the tie in his face. “So, if you wouldn’t mind, darling...and clean him up for me, too…”

She threw the tie at Nick before whipping out a bottle of shaving cream and a cloth. 

“I don’t like beards. Maybe we should shave you, too.” 

Nick frowned as he studied the tie, it looked familiar, as did the suit jacket. He flipped the tie over, looked at the handwriting on the tag. 

_ Nick S.  _

“This is my suit,” he croaked. He looked into the man’s face, most of it covered up by the weird muzzle mask he had only seen in sex shops or Lady Heather’s dungeon. “You...you were in my house?”

“I think you mean  _ my  _ house,” Veronica interrupted, making Nick jump out of his skin as she planted her hands on his shoulders from behind. She gave him a gentle shake that made him whimper before she slapped his cheek lightly. “Now, the tie?”

Though his cheeks burned red in rage and his teeth seethed with fury, he began to start tying the tie around the man’s neck, because Veronica was once again dangling the keys in front of him. While at this point, he didn’t particularly care about getting shocked again, he didn’t want the man in front of him to have to suffer watching the pain unfold, didn’t want to scare him more than the tearful eyes indicated to him that he already was. 

So he bit the bullet, and did what he was told, and once the tie was complete, she undid the mask, and his blood boiled even higher and hotter once he got the full picture. 

The man in front of him was Phillip Strombert, the same man that was the root cause of Nick’s suspension.

“Y-you?” the man stuttered. Nick couldn't tell if this man was more afraid of his wrath, or Veronica.

_ “You.”  _ Nick growled. 

“Ooh do you two know each other?” Veronica squealed excitedly, stopping her shark-like circular stalking of the situation to butt their heads together. “My, my, Nicky, you have more friends than I thought!” 

She playfully ran her fingers through both of their hair, then bent down towards Nick to whisper, as Phillip began to struggle again. 

“Feel free to give him a slap to get him to co-operate…”

She stood up and began to circle the men again. Nick’s hands gripped the arm rests of the chair again, his knuckles turning white as she started to talk.

“You know, I was scared at first, when they tried to possess me. To break me. For a while, I even fell for it, actually. Fell into their demands, bowing to their every whim, because I needed them. I needed them to feed me, clean me, take care of me because I was their  _ precious little pet,  _ ” she added in a sneer. “But one day, they asked for my help, and I gave it to them and realized that really, they needed me more than I needed them. And once I realized I had that power over them...I was free.”

_ This sick fuck is free, alright. Free to do what she wants, to who she wants. Disgusting. Even this fucking asshole doesn’t deserve this. _

“I fell in love with that feeling of power. Being in control. To manipulate someone’s body…” she lifted up Nick’s hand and pressed it to Phillip’s cheek. “To  _ own  _ them…”

She pulled Nick’s hand away, left it hanging in the air, though he drew it back, balled up his fists. She rounded behind Phillip, teasing him by twirling his hair in her fingers, digging her nails into his scalp, which made the man cry pathetically.

_ “Make him stop…” _ she whispered into Nick’s ear as she passed by him. 

And oh, did he want to. 

So badly. 

Instead he started on his next task, lathered up the man’s face, not noticing that Veronica had ceased her circling, was tending to a table where she obtained a razor that she drew across Nick’s neck, to his chin, lightly so as to not cut him, though he froze under its threat anyway. 

“It feels good, doesn’t it?”

She poked his skin with the tip of the blade, turned it so that he would turn with it, made her meet eye contact with him as she switched the blade around effortlessly, so that the handle was now sticking under his lifted chin, and the blade was directed towards herself.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I think…” Nick’s fingers wrapped around the handle of the razor blade. “You’re insane.”

He swiped the blade in one swift motion, and it became soaked in blood that wasn’t his own. 


	8. The Purple Vortex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica is starting to get a little annoyed, and Catherine gets a haunting text message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> think this has been the longest I've gone since updating?? bit of a short one but the next one might be a bit, uh...on the heavy side. 
> 
> (and hopefully coming before the week is over! or even begins. who knows.)

She stomped up the stairs on her way to Greg’s apartment, she could feel the heat that reddened her cheeks, her nostrils expanded as she huffed in short bursts of air. Her neck throbbed against the shallow cut given to her by Nick, which stung and smelled of disinfectant underneath a large bandage that, in her eyes, was a huge blemish on her otherwise ravishing look.

Luckily for her, Nick had a collection of turtleneck sweaters hanging in his closet. Though it was not normally her style, she didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention. If she were honest with herself, she’d admit that she didn’t even know what she would say when asked about Nick’s latest futile attempt at escape. 

At first it was cute, the way he struggled and squirmed and fought to escape her, his face scrunched with defiance, but it’s been just over a week and now? She was starting to get annoyed. Truly annoyed, and the annoyance would not stop there, and not just with Nick Stokes.

She reached his door, took a deep breath, plastered on her mask with the ultra fake smile that made her cheeks burn even more to bear, and pounded quickly on the door.

“It’s open!” 

She opened the door, the odd stench of Greg’s apartment--she hadn’t quite yet figured out what it belonged to--tickled her already flared nostrils, but she kept a firm hold on her smile, which caught onto Greg, who was at the kitchen counter, plating some sort of food.

“I thought we would stay in tonight,” he told her, gesturing to his poor excuse for a kitchen table. One plate was already laid out on a hastily-cleared dining spot that she can tell he doesn’t use that often. Stacks of papers were shoved up against the wall against the table, some on the floor.

Her smile faltered as she saw that he had given her a glass of wine already, but she didn’t see one on the table for himself. 

Drugging him was not going to be the usual cakewalk. 

She had been able to finagle her way in drugging him at the restaurants, either slipping it in his drink while he went to the bathroom, or catching the waiter on their way with the drinks while she excused herself to the bathroom. 

The bathroom trick could work here too, of course, but he’s a CSI. If he caught on to the fact that he was being drugged, rather than just getting  _ super drunk  _ and having a terrible hangover, the list of suspects would be isolated to just her, and she’d have to skip town. 

And while that was already the endgame, she needed more time to make certain...arrangements.

And to make sure that Nick wouldn’t risk the move with any more escape attempts. Of course, she could easily incapacitate him, put him under or else use the paralytic on him again.

But where was the fun in that?

“Sorry for the mess, this was sort of a last minute decision, I wanted to surprise you, didn’t think you’d be home so early,” Greg began to ramble at high speed, noting how Veronica’s smile had faltered. She cleared her throat, lighting up with the fake smile once more. 

“Oh, it’s okay, doll. This all looks so  _ amazing!”  _ she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Why don’t you sit down, I’ll get you a drink--”

“Nah, nah, V, you sit. Enjoy, baby!” 

“Hmm, thanks, babe,” Veronica grins as she sits herself down, the wheels turning in her head on how the rest of the night was going to play out. For a few moments, she contemplated knocking him out altogether, bringing her to the shelter...but it was too early for that. She wanted to get a few more details out of Greg before that doorway was closed.

And not only that, but she needed to clear house before introducing him to her favorite toy.

“Aw, what happened to your neck?”

“Oh, nothing, my dog...got stupid and tried to attack me. Got a bit riled up, is all, but, oh...the poor thing…”

She took a long sip of wine as she contemplated the rest of the story, though she could tell that Greg already bought into it. Perhaps she didn’t need to drug him at all tonight. 

Well, okay, maybe just a little.

Just for fun.

“I had to put him down.”

* * *

She hated to admit it, knew it was a little childish, a little stupid, but every time she was lost, she wandered into that office space, expecting that she could find the answers to the questions that weren’t even fully formed coherent thoughts in her mind. 

She wasn’t the only one, as Catherine was standing in front of an unoccupied desk, leaning against it with her hands splayed out for support.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked, gently putting a hand on Catherine’s shoulder.

“Russell and Brass are checking into Phillip Strombert’s last known whereabouts. Have you heard from Nick? I tried to call him but he might be giving me the cold shoulder for a little while longer.”

“I went by his house, he wasn’t there. But...his  _ girlfriend  _ was.” 

“Nicky’s got a girlfriend?”

“That’s what I said!”

“I wonder why he didn’t want to say anything.”

“I don’t know, Cath, he hasn’t been saying a lot lately, anyway.”

A beat, Sara pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, sat down in one of the chairs. 

“He also had his bags packed up, she said they were heading to Texas. Said he  _ quit,  _ actually, is that--is that true?”

Catherine sighed, handed the resignation letter to Sara for her to read for herself. 

“This has got to be fake. He wouldn’t just--not like this…” Sara muttered as her eyes scanned the document.

“I don’t want to believe it either.”

Catherine’s phone beeped, she ignored it. 

“He’s not a quitter.” 

“I know.” 

“DB hasn’t signed it yet.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“You think we can trust him?” Sara asked in a low voice, sensing watching eyes and an another person approaching the office. 

Catherine gave a curt nod, before throwing on a calmer facade as Morgan entered the room.

“You guys get the page, too?” she asked, holding up her phone, elaborated as she saw the confusion on their faces. “Family meeting.” 

“Figured you both would be around, anyway,” DB elaborated as he walked into his office, rounded to the chair behind the desk with a heavy sigh as he tossed a file onto his desk. Catherine held onto her phone, having taken it out to check for any messages from the new supervisor, but didn’t as he had already entered the room.

“Phillip Strombert was unable to be located, both family and work haven’t heard from him in a few days. Last known location was this night club, uh…” He opened the file, to recollect the name. “‘The Purple Vortex.’”

“That’s where Nick and I went out last week…”

Silence fell over the room, looks were exchanged, in disbelief because sure, while Nick had every right to be angry, he shouldn’t--and wouldn’t--have been angry enough to go and  _ kidnap  _ somebody. As DB cleared his throat to start talking again, Catherine finally paid attention to her phone, opening the alert that she had a text message from an unknown number. 

“They found his car outside the club, owner says he doesn’t know how long it’s been there,” he sighed again, rubbed his eyes. “I’m gonna have to call Brass, have an APB put out--”

“Don’t bother. Nick might already be in another state, his  _ girlfriend  _ told me that they were heading to see his parents,” Sara sneered. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Catherine choked out. She held up her phone to the rest of the team, an image displayed on the screen that caused another silence to shroud the room, this time, it was more intense, more heartfelt in between the cracks of their fallen hearts. 

It was a picture of Nick, beaten, bruised,  _ bleeding _ , sitting on the floor of what looked like a prison cell, a dazed look on his face, his eyes not even looking directly at the camera, but into the space in front of him. Smudged lines of tears streaking down a dirt-covered face, and a collar around his neck. 

There was a one-worded message that came with the photo.

_ Help. _


	9. The Toy Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wheels are turning in Greg's head, a disturbing realization dawning on him, as Nick's suffering reaches a new level.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is with me and the ninth chapter of my longer fics, I swear, it always seems to be suffering mixed with actual plot. 
> 
> but don't worry, help is finally coming! after two or three more chapters.

It wasn’t the most clear reflection, stretched and distorted in the curve of the bowl, but regardless, he could see a face.

And it wasn’t his.

The reflection had his eyes, though it was hard to really tell because he was squinting a little, his eyelids twitching and fighting against a calling slumber, but if he fell asleep...he might not wake up.

It had his hair, tousled from its normally neat, flattened state. It had his skin, covered in sweat, and blood, and freshly dug up earth. It had his shirt, torn at the seams, just like his brain, just like his heart, because at this point, help was not coming, and he had finally accepted the fact. 

The reflection even had a name. The name she kept referring to when speaking directly to him. 

_ Nick. _

_ He _ was Nick. He was Nick Stokes.

But the reflection was not the same Nick. The reflection was _ a _Nick, but not a Stokes.

_ Veronica’s _Nick. 

The Nick in the mirror even had a collar, a sign of ownership, which is what caused the disconnect to his reflection in the first place, because Nick Stokes belonged to no one. 

He took a sharp breath as he shifted uncomfortably, the reflection winced at him back before it dissolved into stifled, furious cries and he threw the bowl against the wall, its undesirable contents sliding down and seeping into the pores of the bricks of the wall opposite of him. As the bowl bounced back, he used his foot to kick it away, under the bed, until he would need it again, but the movement cost him a twinge of pain in his freshly bandaged thigh, and he hugged the knee of his good leg to his chest, bit down on his knee cap to suppress a pained groan. Burning tears dripped down onto his leg, but he didn’t acknowledge the sensation.

“Are you done throwing your little tantrum?”

He slowly lifted his head, the stubble of his chin brushed up against the impression of his teeth on the skin of his knee. He watched as she opened the door to the cage, he straightened his back against the wall, his hands pushing the bricks behind him, for a way out, but there was no escape. Surely, she hadn’t forgiven him for what he did to her to even consider the possibility of letting him go at this point. 

Surprisingly, he saw that she was carrying the very same razor he had held a few minutes—or hours—or days—hell, maybe even weeks—prior, as well as a bottle of shaving cream, a cloth, and a small baggie with more bread crusts. 

She tossed the bread onto the wire frame of the bed and fell to her knees, crawling toward Nick slowly, creepily, he hyper-focused on her unblinking, gleeful eyes, on the scrunch of her nose, the upward curve of the corners of her lips. She was only two inches from his face, he could smell wine and cherries in her breath.

In a swift movement that was so sudden he barely had time to react, she pinched his cheeks together in one hand, and using the other, used the cloth to wipe the lower half of his face. She scrubbed furiously, which made him whimper from the force, but to silence him, she simply pressed the cloth into his mouth and nose and...held...it...for more than a few seconds, sending his body into an all-out war for air, his arms and legs flopping, his chest rising as high as a mountain—she giggled as she removed the cloth and danced it in front of his face before tossing it behind her. As he gasped and caught his breath, he felt the cool wetness of shaving cream slap up against his skin. She wasn’t gentle, as she coated his growing stubble from ear to ear—he sputtered as some entered his mouth when she carelessly passed over it—and then used one hand to push his forehead against the wall as she brought the other hand to his cheek.

Holding the razor that was still stained with her blood, that was still coated with his finger prints. 

The smile she had quickly slid off of her face, and was replaced with the same frown she used during her darkest, most devious moments with him. He was suddenly thrown through a vortex druggings, stabbings, shootings, surgeries, shockings, _ burials _until he landed back in this moment, and he shuddered to think of what she was going to do to him next. 

“We’re going to have a few customers in about an hour, and we need to get you all dolled up. Don’t want to leave a poor impression and make me look bad, do we, Nicky?” 

She pressed the blade _ into _his skin, he could feel a slight sting, feel a small amount of liquid slide down out of the individual pores that were becoming one thin line.

_ We’ll have matching scars, _he contemplated darkly, was shocked that those weren’t the words that came out of her mouth.

_ “I said, ‘do we, Nick?’” _ she reiterated instead, sliding the razor slowly down his skin, a shallow cut, he could already hear her teasing, “k_nick_ed yourself shaving, did we, Nicky?”

“Y-uh...huh…” he grunted.

“Good,” she plastered on the fake-ass smile that he had a feeling was not so much as fake as it was completely maniacal, and she began to slide the blade—very smoothly, he noted, she was not as inexperienced as he presumed she would be—and with it, slide off what was daring to become a full on beard. 

He almost wishes he had a clock, or a window, or some other way to tell the passage of time, because at this point, he was at a total loss to how long it’s been. At least a week, but truthfully, he lost track after the fifteenth shock to his internal clock.

He remained motionless, save for the uncontrollable twitches in his extremities and lips, partially out of fear as to what she would do to him if he did anything else but act as a rag doll for her to do her bidding—but mostly out of the feeling of numbness, complete dissociation from the body that _ wasn’t his _anyway, so what did it matter that she was shaving off the overgrowth of hair on his face? She was right, he probably looked better without it anyway. 

He didn’t quite know what to look at as she shaved his face, humming along to a song that was blaring from the radio in the surgery room. He avoided her gaze by flickering his eyes to her neck, zoomed in on a fresh bandage ever so slightly sticking out beneath a turtleneck sweater.

_ His _turtleneck sweater, he noted, with a sour taste in his mouth, a sickening sensation slithering up and down his spine. 

“Wanna kiss it and make it better?” she asked, and her face sharpened into a dangerous look of menace as she cooed to him, in an exaggerated voice of mocking, “Aw, don’t worry, I think you’ve proved that you’re ‘_ very sowwy,’ _ you did such a great job being so quiet and still... _ ” _

She stroked his freshly shaven cheek with the tip of her finger, tracing over the lines that weren’t entirely clean of the remnants of his torment, over the cut on his cheek. He flinched away as she waggled his nose between her thumb and forefinger, and she fell into a fit of pleasured giggles. 

“I didn’t even have to use the paralytic this time.”

* * *

He had woken up with the worst hangover, which made absolutely no sense, given that he didn’t drink anything the night before other than a bottle of water. 

A bottle of water that luckily for him, was not completely emptied. He brought with him to the lab and slammed onto the desk of Henry Andrews, startling the poor man out of his intense concentration on another sample.

“What-what case is this for?” he stammered as Greg leaned against the counter, ducking his head down to speak in a low whisper, because this was nobody’s business but his own. It was bad enough that his girlfriend may have drugged him, and hell, possibly have been drugging him all along, because he’s had plenty of hangovers but none were quite like the ones he’s had since he’s gone out with her. 

“It’s not. Just between you and me. It’s a secret proficiency test, not even the big boss man’s in the know about it,” Greg explained in a low, fierce tone. “You bring the results _ directly-to-me _and nobody else, capiche?” 

“Capiche...but...what-who’s water is this?”

“Who are you bringing those results to?” Greg deflected, his heart pounding a thousand beats per minute, his forehead began to sweat. 

“Directly to you…” Henry muttered. 

“Good.” 

Greg spun around, whipped out his cell phone, saw an unread text from V--_ hey, last night was such a sweet surprise! come by later for one of my own xo _

He wouldn’t even know what to respond with, as he became a rising tower of rage in the absence of excuses as to how it may _ not _have been a drugging, as the evidence was leaning him towards the truth of a betrayal of trust.

And betrayal of _ love. _

He was struggling to form a potential coherent message when he bumped into an equally fuming Sara, her face pale in a white anger he had never quite seen before. 

No, it wasn’t just anger. It was _ anguish. _

“Where the hell have you been?” she hissed at him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and took him along on her path to the A/V lab, and he was thrust into a living nightmare of deja vu, the entire team gathered around the main desk, with Nick’s face plastered all over the screens.

Only this time, frozen in an intimate moment of suffering, and just as before, Greg felt like he was violating his co-worker’s privacy, made even worse by their own shared intimacy with each other.

His hand has never felt so empty. 

“What...what is this? A ransom? A joke?”

“It’s real,” DB’s exhausted voice croaked. “And it’s not a ransom. It’s a message.”

* * *

He couldn’t bear to look at them any more. He could only see one of them, anyway. Two if he _ really _strained to look. 

He kept asking them, _ what’s your name? _

They couldn’t respond, their voices held hostage under the heavy dose of drugs she kept them all under. He should feel privileged that she allowed him such a freedom, to talk, to cry, to _ scream, _because as soon as the smallest of sounds escaped their lips, she tightened the invisible gag. 

He kept telling them, _ it’s going to be okay. _

But he knew as well as they did, that ‘okay’ was no longer in the realm of possibility while Veronica was still alive.

He gave one last long look at the poor woman in the cage diagonally from him, watched as her lips quivered silently, as if she were trying to say something, but at this point, he didn’t want her to get into any more trouble. 

Especially not because of him.

“Don’t,” he warned her, softly, before he shifted himself to the other side of the cell, blocking her from his view. He shut his eyes as he heard soft cries that were feminine, not his own. He rubbed his grimy hands over his face. He scrubbed his closed eyes, wiped his nose, covered his ears but he could still hear the cries, and they were getting louder, morphing into a scream. His head throbbed, the veins in his neck stretched to their limit as he felt water slide down his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry…” he told the poor woman, though he didn’t look at her. _ Couldn’t _ look at her, as he heard the _ zap _followed by a hitch in her screaming, a cackle of electricity, gasps and gurgles. To him, it was a punishment for disobedience, for training, for trying to encourage the others to try and escape with him—though the punishment he endured for that wasn’t actually a shock to his body, but to all of theirs. 

And sometimes, he thought, it was just for Veronica’s pleasure.

For her, it was a warning to shut the hell up, before Veronica came back into the room and shut her mouth for her. 

Fortunately, she got the hint, though Nick wouldn’t release the breath he held until far later, long after her cell was vacated. 

Sure enough, Veronica did enter the room minutes later, at first, he presumed to replenish the IV drip with her drug of choice that day, but his ears perked up as he heard other footsteps accompanying hers, and the lack of pulsing pop music. She wasn’t alone. 

Though her company was not that of a chivalry coming to his rescue, as he had stopped dreaming of that a long time ago. She was schmoozing her companions, loudly announcing herself into the room—perhaps another warning, for her toys to be on their “best behavior.” 

Nick didn’t even have the energy to put up a fight at this point, anyway.

“Lady and gentlemen, welcome...to Veronica’s Toy Box,” she proclaimed, he could hear the soft claps of her hands, see the stretched shadows pass over the hallway floor, hear the soft gasps and “ooh’s” of the group. 

And he saw the flashes of a silent camera. A phone camera, perhaps. 

“This one would be such a great addition to my collection, how much?” a male voice boomed, Nick could hear the soft shaking of the cage door next to him. 

“We can discuss pricing and bidding later, sweetheart,” Veronica assured the inquiring customer. “For now, let us all just...admire them, and..._ imagine _the possibilities. Absolutely endless, my friend, and you can’t quite put a price on that.”

“Oh, Veronica, you're such a charmer, darling. Good thing I brought my checkbook. My, my, what a beauty! Where did you find it?”

“Poor thing, found it on a pub crawl, just absolutely wasted.”

“Well, it won’t be wasted on my account.” 

“What is _ this?” _

Nick blinked as he saw another flash in his peripheral vision, much more intense than the other three. Once he snapped out of the momentary daze, his head lolled to the side, and he saw the group of four standing outside the cage, looking at him. 

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but this one...he’s not for sale,” Veronica explained to the man, though she kept firm eye contact with Nick, unable to hide the devious joy from her expression, as she saw Nick react to the words. “He's my _special_ toy, And I’m afraid I can’t let you take that picture home with you, either.”

“Ah, I see, well, allow me to—”

“No, you know what? Allow _ me, _to demonstrate the effectiveness of my training program. Nicky, be a doll and delete this photo for us…”

Veronica swiped the phone out of the man’s hand after reeling him by the tie around his neck, slide the phone between the bars of the cage. 

_ Are you really that fucking stupid? _He asked, though he wasn’t quite sure who he was asking, himself or Veronica? 

Veronica’s too smart for this. Too smart to literally hand Nick an opportunity such as this one on a silver platter, unless it was another test of obedience, he quickly scanned her hands for the key chain that activated his collar. 

One hand was occupied as she kept holding her “customer’s” tie, the other stroking the man’s suit jacket as he slowly reached for the phone. The longer he took, the more impatient she would get, and the more certain that corrective actions would be taken. 

He grabbed the phone, and had only a few seconds to decide if it was worth the risk, because if cutting her earned him the intense punishment—that he had yet to fully recover from—who knows what _ this _would do to him. 

But on the other hand, what _ was _the worst she could do to him at this point? Kill him? 

He wasn’t afraid to die.

Not anymore.

His thumb hovered over the trash can icon as he stared at the picture of _ Veronica’s Nick, _ that he felt no sense of identity with, and he suddenly faced himself with another dilemma—what if this picture got into the wrong hands? Though he’d argue that it already _ was _in the wrong hands, and if he didn’t delete it, it might end up in some dark corner of the internet, and both Veronica and Nigel would have much more competition in the creepy ass stalker department.

It was a risk he was willing to take, because in this moment, he could control _ where _the picture was sent. And so, instead of pressing the delete button, he used the fingers on both of his hands to send the picture to the first number that came to mind, along with a rare plea, with an even rarer prayer that the recipient would take pity, and would finally prioritize finding him.

Because surely, _ someone _in the Las Vegas Crime Lab would have noticed he was gone by now, wouldn’t they? 

_ They’ve all forgotten about you... _ Veronica’s voice swam in one ear, out the other. _ They let me have you, you’re all mine… _

_ Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, _ echoed in his head, as the phone jumped out of his fingers, as the individual bones in his hands, his feet, his arms, his legs, his torso all rattled and sizzled...and _ cracked. _


	10. Vanessa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DB and Catherine fill in Nick’s parents, pieces of a larger puzzle slowly coming together. Greg is reunited with Nick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao this might be the most vile, twisted thing I’ve ever written. I’m sorry, Greg.

“This is Judge Stokes.”

“Your honor, my name is DB Russell, I’m calling from the Las Vegas Crime Lab.”

“'DB?' What, does that stand for something? And why are you calling me so damn early in the morning?” the man on the other end of the line grumbled with a stifled yawn. 

“I”m calling in regards to your son, Nick Stokes.”

“Nick? What happened?” the man’s voice was suddenly awake, alert. “Where’s Gil Grissom, let me talk to him.” 

“Gil Grissom no longer works here, I’m Nick’s supervisor. I do have Catherine Willows in the room, she says you’ve met before.”

“Your honor,” Catherine greeted as DB held the phone in the center of the desk on speaker.

“Cathy, what the hell is going on? Jill, wake up,” his voice softened, the background noises amplified to indicate he put his phone on speaker as well. 

“Have you heard from Nick lately?” 

“No, haven’t talked to him since his birthday, why?”

“Did something happen to him?” Jillian Stokes chimed in.

DB and Catherine exchanged looks, Catherine’s bottom lip quivered.

“We received a picture of your son and we haven’t heard--”

“How much?” Judge Stokes interrupted.

“I’m sorry?”

“How much for the ransom?” 

“Your honor...there was no ransom.”

“What the hell? What kind of picture are you talking about? Where is our boy?” Judge Stokes snapped.

“We’re not sure, Judge Stokes. We were under the impression he was actually in Texas,” Catherine contributed while DB bit his lower lip.

“Texas? Why would he be in Texas?”

“We got word from his girlfriend that they were going to Texas to visit you and your family.”

“Girlfriend?” Jillian Stokes gasped. “He never told us he had a girlfriend!”

“Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise…” Judge Stokes muttered. “This picture...what was the picture of?”

Silence, from DB and Catherine. A mental debate, whether to reveal the contents of the picture or not. 

“If he is in Texas, maybe we can tell by the surroundings?” Jillian added, twisting the hearts of DB and Catherine even further, but she had a point, even if there was nothing but a brick wall in sight. 

DB sent the picture over, and as soon as Nick’s parents received it, Catherine’s heart shattered as she could just picture the heartbreak on their faces, heard through the small release of a cry from Jillian, the heavy sigh from Judge Stokes. It was somehow even more painful, not seeing their faces in this moment, and Catherine closed her eyes, envisioned them as they were a few years back, helplessly and hopelessly wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“We’ll grab the first flight out,” Judge Stoked choked gruffly, before the line was disconnected.

DB let the phone drop out of his hand before he wiped down his face, his eyes threatening to turn damp as he put himself in the Stokes’ shoes, tried to imagine what it would feel like if this was one of  _ his  _ children missing. 

And not only that, but for this to be the third abduction, made it all the more tragic, the fact that Judge Stokes’ immediate reaction was to ask for the ransom amount lit some sort of rage-filled, but sympathetic fire inside of DB. 

“Have we got any closer to finding this supposed ‘girlfriend?’” he asked with his nose pinched between his fingers.

“Sara’s over at his house now, staking out with a couple of uni’s. Any update on Nick’s car?”

“Morgan and Greg are still working on it with a fine tooth comb. Brass is following up with the number that sent the message to your phone. I was about to head down to the morgue for Doc’s report on the body, see if he was able to get an ID.”

“Already got it,” Mandy panted as she burst into the office. “Prints belonged to Phillip Strombert.” 

“Strombert? But...that’s…” Catherine trailed off, looking at DB with a developing look of horror. “How did Strombert’s beheaded body get into Nick’s car?” 

“And where’s his head?”

* * *

“CSI Sanders, you have a visitor in the lobby. CSI Sanders, you have a visitor in the lobby.”

He didn’t have time for visitors. 

“You gonna go see who it is?” Morgan asked.

“Can’t be anyone important,” Greg murmured. He kept a yawn trapped in his throat, continued to scan the driver’s seat for anything that didn’t belong to the owner of the car. 

“Yo, Sanders! You got a visitor!” Hodges called out from the other side of the hall. “A rather pretty one, too!” 

“It’s like a doorbell that just won’t stop ringing. Go. You look like you need a break, anyway. Come back with fresh eyes.” 

Greg sighed but had to admit, Morgan was right. It would be better if he took a break, he had practically memorized the amount of pores in the leather seats of Nick’s car. He de-gloved and walked out of the garage, but was met with Henry on his way to the lobby.

“Hey, here’s your results. Did I pass?”

Greg looked at the piece of paper, and had to reach deep down within his stomach to find his voice again.

“Yeah. Thanks.” 

His eyes scanned the paper, for some sign that maybe he misread the results, that maybe he had been given a false positive. He was just about to spin around and tell Henry to test it again, when he collided with his visitor.

“Hey, babe, figured I’d surprise you at work!” 

His nostrils flared, he gritted his teeth together. He hated how she stood there, with her radiant beauty and a wide smile on her face, her eyes shining in the fluorescent lights, while he held her true nature on a piece of paper between his fingers. 

She bounced on her heels, planted a kiss on his cheek, gripping his shoulders as she eagerly awaited his response. 

“You drugged me,” he whispered into her ear. The wheels in his head worked overtime to determine the best course of action. He didn’t want to make a scene, in the event there was a small chance he was wrong, he didn’t want to ruin their relationship. But at the same time, Nick was missing, and he didn’t have time to play with around this woman.

“I did?” she asked back in a low whisper, in a completely dumbfounded tone. She removed her hands from his shoulder, used one to grab the lapel of his jumpsuit, as the other danced down his chest, tugging at the zipper to the suit and pulling it down. 

“My water. Last night.” 

“And where’s your proof?”

“In my hands. I tested the water.”

“Oh, Greg…”

She leaned in close, so close that her lips were practically touching Greg’s cheek, he felt goosebumps rise on the back of his neck as her hot breath entered his ear. He felt something wet slide its way in, a familiar sensation that, under different circumstances, would serve as a turn on but in this moment he wanted to flinch away, separate himself from her, but was stopped by the sound of a  _ click! _

That’s when he realized something was pressing against his stomach.

“I never touched your water bottle. I’m not stupid,” she hissed at him, digging the gun into his belly button.

“You must be, if you just drew a gun on me in the middle of a crime lab.”

“Seems like you’re the only one aware of that fact,” she pointed out, and he hated to admit she was right, with the way they were standing, and the way she had pulled the flap of his unzipped jumpsuit over the gun to conceal it.

“I could scream.”

“You won’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“Cause if you do, you’ll never see Nick again.” 

Greg’s heart stopped beating, sank to the floor as his eyes flickered from her face to DB’s office, just within his line of sight. 

An empty office. 

“Why are you doing this, Vanessa?” he asked her. He dropped the piece of paper to the ground, prayed that someone would pick it up and figure out what was going on. He flashed a quick look to the security camera in the corner. 

“Oh, darling...my name’s not Vanessa,” she giggled as she used a free hand to bop him on the nose. “My name is  _ Veronica.”  _

He wanted to scream, but every inch of his body was paralyzed, numb as every thought that was running through his head came to a screeching halt, which made it easier for Veronica to stick him with a needle before manipulating their position so that they were walking together, at a painstakingly slow pace, out of the lab and into a car that was parked on the curb. 

“C’mon, doll, I think it’s time you met my dog.” 

* * *

Consciousness was no longer a certainty. 

Reality was oozing through his fingers. 

As soon as the phone was ripped from his hands, he came out of his punishment shock to find that he was on the blood-stained ground outside of his cell, his palms sweating into the damp concrete. A sharp pain blossomed from his injured leg, he heard and felt his femur splitting apart, hot blood gushed through the gauze wrapped around his thigh. 

He felt something large, fleshy, pinch his thigh together. His eyes shut tight, he felt himself lifted into the air, his arms fell behind him, above his head, and he realized he was upside down. His other leg weakly kicked the air, tried to reorient himself. His body was swinging forward, the contents of his upturned stomach threatened to rise through his throat, out of his mouth. 

“No, please, I’ll crawl!” he cried out in a pained sob. “I’ll crawl.”

“Oh, it’s far too late for that,” Veronica’s voice boomed, he felt a wad of spit land in the center of his face, he tried to wipe it off, and he blinked his eyes open to find that his body was no longer moving, he was lying limply in the birdcage, and his leg was displaced, immobile in pain. It may as well have been severed from his body altogether, he could no longer feel it.

He grew nauseous as the cage began to swing, giant fingers poking and prodding him through the bars,  _ petting  _ him, cooing at him,  _ laughing  _ at him as he tried to swat them away, which earned him another shock as he was reminded by a shrill voice in his head, “ _ dolls don’t move.”  _

He dared to open his eyes, at the giant customers toying with him for their amusement, treating him like he was some sort of pet. 

He let out a scream as he identified them as his co-workers. His friends. DB, Catherine, Sara, Morgan, wide eyes and creepily gleeful faces. The people he thought had forgotten him, now vying to  _ own  _ him. 

“How much do you want for him?”

“I’ll take him home right now!”

“There are so many things I could do to him…”

“Does the collar come with the price?”

A hand grabbed him from behind, long, slender fingers wrapped around his chest, constricted his arms to the sides of his body. He struggled, kicked at reverberating echoes of laughter and giggles as he 

“He’s not for sale, he’s all  _ mine,”  _ Veronica’s voice rang out like a bell, squeezed another shock out of his body.

Once the shock faded into soft cries and shaky whimpers, he found himself face to face with a giant Veronica, her face so large and imposing he couldn’t take it all in at once, though her large, menacing eyes kept him captive as she peered between the bars of the cage.

“We’re all alone again, Nicky, just you and me. The way it should be. The way it will be. Forever.” 

“No! No, get away from me!” He cried as he tried to inch himself away, dragging a smear of blood on the cage floor beneath him but was stopped by the wall of the cage, rested his body against the cold, unforgiving metal.

“Ah, ah, ah!” she warned him, she drew herself backward, into the shadows shrouding the surroundings of the cage hanging in the air. She re-emerged behind him, judging by the loudness of her voice, the sensation of her breath on his backside. He jerked himself away, scampered to the other side of the cage, dragging his broken leg along with him.

She was holding a familiar looking male doll, his head pinched between her thumb and forefinger of one hand, the other wrapped around his torso. He squinted through his tears to see that the man was Phillip Strombert, he felt a surge of fury float his body upward as he gripped the bars of the cage. 

“You better behave, Nicky,” she began, pinching the head of the frozen, terrified man. “I don’t like it when my toys disobey me.” 

She twisted the doll’s head, separated it from his neck with a squelching crackle, and Nick screamed as he watched blood come out of both ends of the severed body. 

“Back into the box with you!” Veronica hollered in a high pitched voice, like an excited schoolgirl, as she dropped her broken toy and lifted something above the birdcage.

He felt the trickle of dirt before it slammed down on his screaming form altogether, and his once sweating body felt dry, cold, small tingles prickling at his skin that was waking from numbness as he flailed in the confines of the prison that encased his body completely. He was able to sift the dirt away, and sighed in relief as he realized he was no longer in the birdcage. The soft bed of dirt turned into a literal soft mattress bed, a blanket wrapped his naked legs, his head fell back against a fluffy pillow, he heard the soft snores of a man besides him. He smiled as he turned his head and saw Greg Sanders, sound asleep next to him.

He was at home.

It was a terrible dream, all of it.

“What a nightmare,” he muttered as he brought up his hand to rub his eyes, but in the movement, he felt the skin of his arm brush with the thick collar, as his chin also came into contact with it through a yawn. 

“No…” he breathed, he moved his hand next to him, to shake Greg awake. “No, no, no, no.”

He was breathing so hard, so fast that he thought he was going to run out of air, as he heard a knocking next to him, then to his other side, beneath him, above him, behind him. Greg wasn’t waking up, he spun around wildly, fell out of bed onto the floor, his leg had collapsed beneath him, a painful split as it bent in a direction that was not physically possible. 

The walls began to shake and fall apart, the ceiling was split open, revealing Veronica, reaching in, but she wasn’t reaching for Nick, but for Greg, who came to life with a scream as he flailed in her clutches. Nick reached out, but was shoved back down with the push of her finger, back into the bird cage. He craned his neck and he could see in the corner of his eye, a doll-sized model of his house, without a ceiling. 

“Nick!” Greg shouted down to him.

“Greg! Let him go!” Nick pleaded, but no sound came out of his body.

“Here he is! My pride and joy, although, I believe you two have already met…” Veronica giggled as she poked at Greg, lifted his chin up.

“I thought you said you put your dog down,” Greg asked with a sneer as he squirmed in Veronica’s grip. 

“I did, I put him so far down into the ground that nobody would ever find him, but he writhed his way out like the tiny little worm he is,” Veronica drawled, petting the hair on Greg’s head.

She looked at Nick straight in his eyes, her tongue curling her lips upward as he moved his lagging gaze back towards a full sized Greg, looking down at Nick and gripping the bars of his cage, which had suddenly expanded, stopped rocking. The bars in front of him twisted and bent to the lattice of the cell door, he spun around, the rest of the bars were melted together in stone. He was back in his cell, and wondered if he had ever even left.

Confused, he wanted to cry out, warn his friend as Veronica reached behind her, brought up another shock collar and clasped it around the unsuspecting Greg before he even had time to react. He tried to shake her off as she grabbed him from behind, stroked the side of his cheek while shushing into his ear. 

“You should know as well as I do, he just doesn’t know when to quit.” 


	11. Veronica Says

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg comes to startling realizations as Veronica begins to train her latest victim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhhhkay so I know I say this like, every time I update this fic but this chapter is REALLY intense, and one of the longer chapters I've written. Gonna just throw up the WARNING for nudity--but I want to stress that there is no detailed description of it nor is it meant to be interpreted with any sexual undertones, just a power play. 
> 
> Also...this was never actually intended to be part of this fic but there's no going back now...

Whatever Greg had thought was happening to Nick based on the picture they received, didn’t even come close to the actual truth laid out in front of his eyes. 

His imagination had already been running wild, using what they had inferred from the pictures that were taken the last time. A fall down a set of stairs. Two stab wounds connected by a line. Chained up in a closet, heavily drugged. 

But last time, Greg had seen the agony firsthand, before the pictures. Already had the baseline of context, though he still had to infer the rest, given Nick’s lack of memory surrounding the whole ordeal. 

This time, they all saw the picture of Nick sitting against a wall, with no discernible evidence to suggest that really, he was sitting in a cell in an abandoned animal shelter--which made the collar around his neck make  _ slightly  _ more sense, though Greg had seen plenty of collars in his time in this city to know that there are...other uses for such an accessory.

They had no idea that his leg injury was much worse than it seemed, as Nick didn’t seem all that eager to move, though he fell to his side, reached for the cell door,  _ reached for Greg _ with wide, pleading, tearful eyes that drove a million needles into Greg’s heart. They weren’t able to see the trail of blood that started at the entrance to the building, and ended underneath his swollen, bandaged leg. 

They had no idea that his face was cut up, that there were welts and bruises all over his skin, that they couldn’t quite see in the picture, under all of the dirt that coated not just his face, but his arms and legs, too. 

They had a suspicion that he was in trouble, but they had no idea that he was a  _ prisoner. _

And a victim of stalking, for the second time in his life, as Greg suddenly realized that the turtleneck she was wearing came from Nick’s wardrobe, a nauseating realization, a connection, that she may have been the “girlfriend” that Sara had told him about.

_ How long has this been going on,  _ he wondered, and his heart broke as he came to the conclusion that no matter how many days it had been, it was  _ far too long.  _

“Reunited and it feels so good…” Veronica began to sing in a sultry whisper as Greg fell to his knees, to hook his fingers onto Nick’s in the loops of the door. Nick’s lips were quivering, his eyes were watering holes, stared directly at Greg but also...not at Greg, there was a horrified glaze over his eyes like a sheet that Greg just wanted to tear apart, uncover the real Nick and let him know that  _ yes, I’m really here, you’re not alone, we’re going to get out of this.  _

But the collar around his own neck told him, that escape wasn’t going to be that easy. 

As did the swift kick to the side of his head that broke him away from the cage door. 

“You smell like shit,” Veronica’s voice rang above him as he felt a buzz in his head. Her foot was the top piece of the sandwich of his hand to his face, which he had moved to rub away the impact to his head. She pressed her foot down, the tip of her heel dug into his jawline, he groaned as she turned his head to look up at her towering above him. 

He hated how he was  _ still  _ attracted to her, how, under any other circumstances, this would have even been a turn on. 

He also hated how he had been played for a fool for the past few weeks of their relationship, lured in with the intent of this captivity--if she even intended to keep him around for that long. Another sickening realization that this wasn’t about him. It was never about him. It was about getting to Nick, and the broken look on Nick’s face, the whimpering through stifled cries, told him that it worked. 

Greg Sanders was Nick’s true weakness. 

“All gross and sweaty from all of that  _ hard work  _ you did to try and find Nicky here...Well, looks like that work paid off after all, and it’s time for your reward.” 

She removed her foot and pointed a finger down at him.

_ “Stay!”  _ she commanded, before she opened the lock to Nick’s cage. Greg watched as she bent down to Nick, grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him close. 

“You smell, too. Absolutely  _ disgusting.  _ And I think we need to re-bandage your leg, anyway,” she added, patting him on his injured leg, to which he muttered something that morphed into a pained yell. 

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” she hollered as she pushed down on the leg. 

“Ahhhh you’re right! I smuh-smell. Di-Disgusting!” he cried. Greg felt his heart sink down at his response, his  _ compliance  _ to this woman.

At what point did Nick stop fighting back? 

“And what do we do when we’re dirty and smell?” 

“T-take...a-a b-bath…” he stuttered through gritted teeth. 

“Good boy!” Veronica cheered as she clapped her hands. Nick avoided Greg’s gaze as she swiveled his body around, held him underneath his armpits, and dragged him out of the cage. He could feel a wave of secondhand embarrassment shiver through his body as he took pity on Nick, and selfishly feared that the same fate awaited him, if he wasn’t careful. 

An eerie smile spread across her face as she turned to observe Greg, who was still lying on the ground, partially out of fear, but partially because of the drugs that were still coursing through his bloodstream, dulling his senses and reflexes, and will to move. She had all but carried him through the shelter, he felt as if he was almost even floating, as if in a dream. 

He hoped this was a dream, that he would wake up at home, in bed, that Veronica wasn’t the psychopath she now revealed herself to be, that Nick had really quit and was in Texas visiting his family, that none of this was happening--but no matter how many times he pinched himself, he didn’t wake up.

This was real. 

“Oh, would you look at that? Greg here did as he was told and  _ stayed.  _ He’s a much better listener than you are, Nick,” she lightly tapped Nick on his cheek, he shuddered with every touch of her fingers. 

She moved past Greg, dragging Nick with her and Nick looked as if he were choking back another scream, biting his lower lip as she carelessly handled his obviously broken leg. He watched Nick’s eyes flicker in and out of the glazed state he saw before. He could only hope that the pain was so intense that he had shut himself off to it, that he had reached a point of dissociation so strong that he was numb, that he wasn’t fully aware of what was going on--which would explain his out of character dialogue of playing along with Veronica. 

The Nick he knew was stronger than that. 

“Greg, come.” 

Greg tentatively got to his knees, used the gate as leverage to stand up.

“Ah, ah, ah! My toys don’t walk. Nick, you tell him.” 

Greg pulled a face at being referred to as a “toy,” but the face crumbled as he watched Nick break down into a sob. 

_ “Nick…”  _ Veronica began in a warning voice, removing one hand from underneath his armpit to move to her pocket, where she dug out her keys and jingled them in front of Nick’s face. A gasp hiccuped through his sobs, and he nodded before bowing his head to his chest, hiding his face from Greg for a few seconds before he looked up at him again, void of any distinguishable emotion, though anger knitted his eyebrows together.

“Crawl,” he seethed through his teeth. 

“What?” Greg asked, to which Veronica sighed in an exaggerated fashion, before roughly dropping Nick to the ground. 

“What is it with you stupid men and not being able to follow a  _ simple  _ command?” she complained, walking around Nick, giving him a small kick to the side of his stomach. She slapped Greg across his face, pounded the back of his head before she kicked the back of his knee, sending him to the ground. He groaned as she pushed him down further, he felt her heels step on top of him. 

“Then again, you’re not men. Not anymore. You’re just boy toys. My  _ playthings,  _ to do with as I please,” she continued, keeping her foot on Greg’s back and calf, effectively pinning him to the ground. Nick propped himself up on his shoulders to observe the ordeal, silent tears streaming down his face. “And you  _ will  _ do as I say, or else.”

Nick shook his head at Greg, having seen the fire in his eyes, the upward curl of his lips, as he uttered the words, “Or else, what?” 

“Oh...Greg, you’ll find out,” Veronica teased, dangling her keys above him once again.

“Greg...J-just...do what she says, pluh-please…” Nick blurted out as he reached out a hand, but not towards Greg, rather towards Veronica, as if to stop her from something. Veronica laughed and released Greg.

“Yes! Do as I say, Greg. Ooh, that’s a game we should play later. ‘Veronica says!’” she cheered with an excited squeal. Greg could feel her hand on his back, see her crouch in his peripheral vision, but he kept his eyes locked on Nick, trying to put on the charade that Veronica wasn’t  _ actually  _ getting to him. 

“Or...we could play  _ darts  _ again,” Veronica whispered into Greg’s ear, which made him pull a puzzled face, though Nick displayed one of terror. Veronica walked away, laughing at a joke that was obviously missed on Greg. 

“Nick, what the  _ fuck?”  _ Greg whispered to his friend, daring to put a hand on Nick’s ankle, which made Nick jump out of his trans-fixation on Veronica, to silently shake his head at Greg, as if to say,  _ not now.  _

Veronica returned moments later, and Nick raised his eyebrows in shock--no, not just shock, more  _ fear,  _ as Greg felt something dance from his feet up his legs, his back, before looping around his neck. 

She pulled back, he choked on the strain to his throat, his fingers fumbled at the noose, though she abruptly dropped the grip, swung around so that the pole attached to the hoop was in front of his eyes.

She handed it to Nick. 

“Go ahead, Nick, tell him again.” 

“C-Crawl…” he gulped. 

“You’re such a great helper, Nicky,” Veronica cooed with a kiss to top of the man’s head, which Nick made seem like it was a spike driving down into his head with his reaction. She ignored it, bent down to grab Nick’s hands and placed them around the pole. “I’m going to need your help with this, too, given that my hands will be busy dragging you along…”

Nick grasped the pole in his hand, though Greg could tell he tried to keep a loose enough grip on it, so that the noose didn’t pull on him as he began to crawl--he had to crawl in a painstakingly slow pace, as Veronica seemed to have difficulty dragging Nick, constantly halting and dropping Nick to catch her breath.

“I’m feeding you too much, you’re getting so  _ heavy,” _ she chastised him, and the casualty in her voice made Greg shiver, as if she were talking about a pet that she was over-feeding. “That, or you’re just making yourself dead weight. But we talked about that, didn’t we, Nick? Loosen up. You’re getting a bath whether you like it or not.”

Greg didn’t know what scared him more, Veronica’s dialogue, or Nick’s lack of a response.

After what seemed like hours, and with more teasing from Veronica, they reached the end of the hallway and entered what appeared to be some sort of operating room that they had passed by as Veronica brought him through the first time, though this time, his view of the room was from the floor, and the mystery of what was on top of the counters, hiding in the dark, was somehow more unsettling than his initial drugged journey through the room. 

But they didn’t stay in the room for long, as they crossed the threshold into a darkened room, she took the pole out of Nick’s hands, dropped it to the ground with a quick pull that slammed Greg down onto the grimy tile, which kept him in a daze. He didn’t dare to move, even if he could, he wouldn’t have had enough time, as after she propped Nick up against a wall, she regained control of the stick and pulled Greg over to his friend, the grimy tile beneath him looped behind his back, pressed up against his elbows as he sat up, and the noose was removed. 

“Undress him,” she ordered, and Nick’s hesitation made Greg wonder who she was directing her command at, though Nick was only dressed in his shirt and underwear. 

She turned on a light, and revealed that they were in some sort of shower stall, and Greg was pleased to see a sliver of defiance in Nick’s eyes as he kept them locked in a nonverbal battle with Veronica.

“Nick,” Veronica began again in another harsh, warning tone. “You undress him, or  _ I will.”  _

Nick gulped, once again staring at the keys that Veronica clutched between her fingers-- _ what is with the keys,  _ Greg wondered, and feared, but whatever it was seemed to make Nick do whatever she wanted. Nick turned to his friend, unzipped the jumpsuit and began to strip Greg down. 

“I’m s-sorry, G…” he muttered in a low voice, barley moving his lips. He managed to get the top half of the jumpsuit off, along with Greg’s shirt, before he paused, and looked towards Veronica, who raised her eyebrows. 

“What’s the matter, Nick?” she asked impatiently.

“C-can’t...moooove,” he groaned, as he must have tried to shift his position, but the pain in his leg acted as a barrier that he couldn’t move past. 

“Greg, stand up,” Veronica ordered, to which Greg complied, though he rose slowly, his eyes darted around the room, wondering if he would have time to push Veronica down and escape--

But he couldn’t leave Nick behind, not like this. He looked down at Nick, who was keeping his head down in shame. 

Nick stifled more groans as he worked to take off the rest of the suit, and pull down Greg’s pants. He grabbed Greg’s hand, to pull him back down so he could presumably remove his shirt, when Veronica cleared her throat. 

“Undress him  _ all  _ the way, Nick.” 

Greg felt Nick begin to shake, watched his nose flare up, his jaw clenched, he wondered, he  _ hoped  _ that Nick was finally about to lash out, show that there was still a part of him that refused to comply--but as Nick’s mouth began to open, it just as quickly shut as Veronica raised up her keys again, her fingers on a small black box that Greg remembered he saw her fiddle with on one of their dates. He looked back at Nick, focused on the collar, saw the scorched, reddened skin that rubbed up against the unforgiving material, and felt his stomach churn as he made yet another realization that his skin wasn’t just raw from the constriction around his neck, but it was almost... _ cooked. _

It was a  _ shock  _ collar. 

“Wait! No--Nick, it’s-it’s okay. Go ahead,” Greg protested, waving a hand at Veronica to stop her from pressing the button, though his heartbeat quickened as Veronica cocked her head to the side, as if she were going to press it anyway. Greg quickly grabbed both of Nick’s hands, guided them to his pelvis, made Nick grab at his underwear, gently pushed the hands down--

“No helping, Greg, it’s not your turn!” Veronica shouted shrilly, which made both men flinch, and Greg held up his hands as Nick quickly finished the job, effectively ripping the band-aid off as he fell into another fit of cries. Greg wanted to cry to, all sense of intimacy lost in an act that was nothing more than a power play at the behest of a psychopath who had  _ no idea  _ that this wasn’t the first time they had seen each other naked--but Greg had never felt so exposed in his life. 

“I’m s-sorry,” he cried as he flung the clothes to the other end of the room. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” 

Greg’s heart stopped beating with the self-imposed question of who he was apologizing to. 

Greg crouched back down, put his hand on Nick’s vibrating shoulder, was about to offer words of comfort before Veronica cut him off--

“It’s your turn now, Greg. Go ahead, strip him,” she commanded before she turned away, to go fetch the hose that was attached to the wall. She turned the water on, a slow, steady stream came out as Greg began to take Nick’s shirt off, and then--as gently as he could--his underwear, carefully maneuvering it around Nick’s inflamed thigh. 

“It’s going to be okay, Nick, we’re going to be okay,” Greg tried to tell Nick, but he wasn’t listening, lost in a cycle of tear-filled apologies. He wrapped his arms around Greg’s shoulders, to embrace him, when he felt a warm splash of water hit his skin…it was almost soothing, if not for the disturbing reality that they were being hosed down like animals, but  _ this isn’t so bad,  _ he thought--

That is, until, he was slammed with a blast of hot water that tore him away from Nick--his body was assaulted with pressurized bullets of water, dancing from corner to corner of his body--he heard laughter, cruel, cold laughter as he tried to protect himself. He curled up, turned his front half of his body away from the onslaught, but his back half was just as sensitive, the scars on his back peeled open--

“No!” Nick shouted, threw himself on top of Greg, and he only felt the excess spray hit his body as Nick shielded most of the blast with his own body. Greg’s eyes were shut tight, trapped in a dark void occupied only by Veronica’s laughter and Nick’s screams, which grew louder, and higher, and more intense as Greg  _ knew  _ she dared to target his leg--he hoped she had some ounce of humanity in her left, that she didn’t blast him in that sore spot head on--

He felt Nick peel away, but felt his fingers still digging their way into Greg’s arms, which kept him close, but not close enough as Greg once again felt a few bullets finding their way onto his back, one in particular hit his spine and he feared it hit him in such a way that would leave him permanently paralyzed--

“All clean!” Veronica proclaimed, which cut through the sea of mixed noise, and convinced Greg to open his eyes. Everything was pulsing, the edges of his vision burned, he was struggling to keep consciousness. 

The pressure came to a descending halt, the water went from a liquid whip to a soft sprinkle onto their faces, Nick sputtered sobs through his screams, which were fading, but still echoed in Greg’s ears. Greg turned himself around, prying Nick’s fingers from his bruised skin--both from the water, and Nick’s grip--wrapped his arms around Nick, pulled him into a hug despite the uncomfortable slapping of their bare, welted skin smashing together in the embrace. Nick clawed his fingers around Greg’s arms onto his back, where his touched softened, knowing about the sensitivity of the skin that looked more like hamburger meat, at this point. 

“Aw, look at you two, so adorable!” Veronica cooed, the clatter of the hose dropping made Greg flinch as he dared to shoot a dirty look at the woman, for soiling the moment of comfort between her two victims. “Perhaps I can sell you two as a package deal…”

_ Sell? What the absolute fuck is she talking about?  _

“But...but you said…” Nick began in a wavering voice, his eyes crossed together, coughing out water and taking quick, deep gulps of air. He had a tone of pure sadness, heartbreak, it reminded him of the plea he had made in the hole, in the closet, rather than any sort of sarcastic rebuttal as he continued, “You said I wasn’t for sale…th-that you were gonna keep me…”


	12. Child's Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Greg finally get to talk to each other about what they've fallen into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I purposefully skipped over the events of the last chapter and this one, but don't worry...we'll be exploring what happened during "playtime" in much greater detail later.

“Veronica says...It’s time to wake up, Nicky.”

He heard the command, but made no movement in response, although he felt a sensation as if he was being moved, swinging back and forth. Even if he wanted to, every cell in his body ached, anchored him down to the soft, warm surface beneath his exposed skin. He had gotten used to not having his pants, for two weeks, but not the rest of his clothing.

_ “Veronica says,”  _ Veronica’s voice rang louder in a warning tone, he felt something tap against his cheeks, his eyes fluttered open, just enough to see her face looming above him, “It’s time to wake up,  _ my little Nicky.”  _

He wondered what he was laying on. Maybe it was Veronica’s hand, she had just dropped him into a boiling cauldron, after all, stirring the pot with him in it, burning him,  _ cooking  _ him. Maybe she had taken him out, letting him dry before she consumed him whole. 

His eyes had closed again, he felt his body jerk forward, starting at his neck. She was shaking him by his collar. 

“Hey! Stop! Leave him alone! Let him rest!” another voice_\--_ _ Greg’s  _ voice--reverberated in and out of his ears. 

Greg. 

_ Greg.  _

Greg was there in the cauldron with him, too. He remembered what was going on, she wasn’t cooking them, she was washing them_\--_ _ hosing them down _ \--because she said they smelled--and they did. Washing them before playing a rousing game of “Veronica Says.” 

A game that apparently, had not yet ended, despite Nick’s passing out early on in the “game” due to sheer exhaustion and excruciating pain.

He should have known better at this point, to expect that the game would have ended so easily. 

He heard Greg yelp, which finally pulled Nick out of the void of unconsciousness, and as the world returned around him, he found that he was lying on a mattress in his cell, and Veronica was sitting on top of him. Greg was in the cell across from his, fully naked, his hands gripping the loops of one of the two gated walls that separated them. 

“Did Veronica tell you that you could talk, Greg? We keep having to go over this, you’re so terrible at this game.” 

He wasn’t standing, he appeared to have buckled down to his knees, he was panting, and Nick deduced that Veronica must have shocked him for his outburst.

“Then again, you’re terrible at everything, aren’t you? You’re a CSI and yet you couldn’t figure out what was going on  _ right in front of your eyes,”  _ Veronica continued to taunt him. Nick tried to move his arms, but they were bound to his sides, even his legs were pushed together, but his fingers and toes seemed to curl, twitch, but he couldn’t control his muscles. 

He looked at Veronica’s hands, she had a syringe between her fingers, pushing into his skin. 

She was paralyzing him again. 

But not...completely, as he felt an odd release, rather than the constriction of any paralyzing agent. As if he were being turned to liquid, rather than stone. 

“Veronica says,  _ relax,  _ Nicky. You’ve been such a good player in our game, consider this your reward.”

A muscle relaxant, that relaxed his body so well that he did not feel inclined to move, not with the numbness overcoming all sense of pain, especially in his injured leg, which Veronica was sitting right on top of--she squirmed and pat his thigh to further prove his theory, he didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. 

“This, and the bed mattress, since I imagine the springs would not have been so comfortable on that precious tush of yours. We need to rest up before our big move...Go ahead, Veronica says you can ask your question,” she giggled, seeing the confusion on his face.

“M-move...whuh-where?” he slurred, he could feel a small amount of drool dribble down over his lips as the words were pulled out of his throat slowly, it almost felt gross to talk, feeling that the words were slimy, not necessarily his own, though they mimicked his thoughts. 

“It’s a surprise, silly!” Veronica stroked his cheek, before she moved off of the bed, he shivered from the sudden cold. “Now, I have to run a few errands, and then I’ll come pick up my  _ favorite  _ toy.” 

She exited his cell, turned her attention to Greg, who had gotten to his feet again, pressed his face into the gate, gritting his teeth in defiance of her. He felt something, a connection, to that small act of defiance, almost like the feeling of deja vu, and he became overwhelmed with a fear that Greg was embarking down the same path that Nick was doomed to ride forever.

“Nick will make sure you behave, won’t he?” she coolly told Greg, bopping his nose with her finger. 

She looked back at Nick, a tight frown on her face, a disturbing fierceness in eyes that pierced right through his heart, though she was still addressing Greg.

“Because if you’re good, maybe I’ll let Nick keep you.”

Nick felt tears burn at the corners of his eyes, spreading across to a point where his vision was blurred, he felt his lips quiver, a rock lodged in his throat. Veronica relished the look on his face for a few moments before she began to strut away, neither man spoke until they heard the door at the end of the hall close. 

“Nick, what the  _ fuck  _ is going on? How long have you been here?” Greg hissed quietly as Nick’s eyes darted all over, trying to grasp focus on Greg’s shaking form. 

“Could...ask you...the ssssssame thing,” Nick groaned through his oozing body. He could feel the sweat pooling underneath him. 

“What-what do you mean?” Greg asked in a high squeak. “Don’t--you don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” Nick asked, his heart began to fly against the ceiling of his chest. 

“The last...god, I don’t even know how long, a couple hours? At least? I mean, granted, you were out for like, half of it, but still--”

“No,” Nick lied, and it hurt him to conceal the truth from his friend, but maybe, just maybe if he did, it would hurt Greg less knowing that Nick was indeed fully conscious during all of the…”playtime” as Veronica so lovingly called it, and remembered every detail, though his mind was contorting those details into nightmarish imaginations that looped through his mind. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” 

“I, uh…” Nick licked his lips, uncertain of what to answer with, but decided upon a topic that served as the perfect bridge to his own questions. “The picture. I suh--sent a picture. Y’all get it?” 

“Yeah, we got it, man, we got it,” Greg nods, still panting in his recovery from his shock, and increasing panic that Nick just wanted to take out of his mind.

“Then...how come it’s jus’ you?” His voice came out more broken than he intended, mirroring the helplessness that seeped out of every pore of his body. An intrusive thought that had pecked at his brain-- _ where is everyone?--why haven’t they come for me?--do they even know I’m gone?-- _ and he was so close to finally having an answer.

“Well, I, uh...Didn’t really come here by choice,” Greg sneered, looking towards the door. He shook his head, sat down on the ground, burying his hands. 

“How did she get you?” Nick asked, though he knew at least part of the story already, based on comments Veronica made about her “dating” period with Greg. Even in his current state of mind he was able to figure out that she lured him in under false pretenses, but rather, he just wanted to make sure he hadn’t physically injured, outside of the welts from the hose…

And the lash on his arm, that must have happened while Nick was out.

“She…” Greg hesitated, his pants of exhaustion turned to angry huffs. “She just...came into the lab, stuck a gun into my stomach--”

Nick’s eyes quickly darted to Greg’s stomach, no blood, just bruises--then back to his arm, stapled together just like his leg had been.

“Injected me with...with something, I dunno, everything got hazy and before I knew it, I was here, wherever...here is.” 

“Are those--those staples?” Nick asked, wanting to point his finger, but unable to lift it, settling for a nod to Greg’s arm instead.

Greg gulped and nodded, sheepishly covering it up with a hand.

“How?” Nick breathed through gritting teeth. 

Greg shook his head, Nick could tell he didn’t want to talk about it just yet, but his anger had not subsided nonetheless.

“The fuck! I’ll kill her, I swear to God--”

“Yeah, and how are you gonna do that?” Greg spat. “You’ve just been  _ going along  _ with it all! You made it seem like the world was ending when she said she was gonna get rid of you--” 

“What other choice do I have, Greg? I mean, look at me...Basically a living doll for her amusement,” he shuddered at the comparison as it exited his lips, but it was one that coming more and more true, especially now that he was as motionless as one. “She only gives me freedom when she thinks I won’t try to fight out of it, which  _ I have,  _ believe it or not, and spoiler alert! It didn’t work!”

His eyes flickered down at his leg, the source of the pain that had made him pass out in the first place. He decided it was best to change the subject for now, before traveling down the path of his psychology. 

The way things were looking, there would be plenty of time for that later. 

“Do you even know how long I’ve been gone?”

Greg didn't respond.

“Well, DO YA?” Nick shouted as loudly as he could, which wasn’t that loud, his vocal chords were loose strings, having been stretched out from all the screaming, it came out hoarsely, almost a whispered yell. 

“We...the last anybody heard from you was last week, from...from your ‘girlfriend.’”

“‘Girlfriend?’” Nick laughed in a wild wheeze. “Oh, that bitch. Living in  _ my  _ house, dressing in  _ my  _ clothes, pretending to be  _ my  _ girlfriend...”

“Before that...another week. When you went out with Morgan.”

“That’s...that’s when she got me,” Nick confirmed. “Shot me in my leg, dragged me here. Broke it after I sent that picture.”

“How’d you even manage that?”

“One of her ‘clients’ snapped it of me, think he wanted to put it on his website or some shit. Veronica m-made me delete it, but I...sent it instead.”

“‘Clients?’”

“I thhhhhhink she’s a...a human trafficker, or something. She...she sold thruh-three people…”

“Was one of them Strombert?”

Nick averted his eyes, back to the ceiling, then to the other wall beside him as an image of Veronica holding up Strombert’s head with bloodied hands flashed in his mind.

“I couldn’t help him.” 

“We found him in your car. Well, not all of him. Haven’t found his head.” 

_ That’s cause it’s hanging in my other cage,  _ he wanted to say, but Greg seemed scared enough already, he didn’t want to add to it. 

Nor did he want to dwell on the fact that he had a sense of ownership to the other confinement she liked to put him in, referring to it as “his” cage, rather than “a” cage, which it was. It was just a cage. Not his cage. He didn’t belong there.

He was on his best behavior, after all. 

Nick deemed that another subject change was necessary.

“L-listen, G, when, uhm. When you see Morgan again, t-tell her, I’m sorry, okay? She didn’t deserve me running off on her like that, b-but I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

“The fuck you talking about? You can tell her yourself, when we get out of here.” 

“What makes you so certain that’s gonna happen?” Nick scoffed. “She’s never going to let me go...but maybe...I can convince her...to let  _ you--” _

“Bullshit. We’re getting out of this.  _ Together.”  _

Greg stood up, gripped his fingers through the loops of the cell door. He hoisted himself up, his toes gripping the loops as he began to climb, though it was an awkward climb, he had to arch his body so that his exposed genitals wouldn’t get caught like his toes--Nick winced as he remembered the sensation of his toenails pried apart from his skin by the metal lattice. 

“Greg, no, don’t--” Nick tried to warn him from making the same mistake he had, nearly two weeks ago. He was climbing quicker than Nick did, seemingly not bothered by the pain in his arm and not handicapped by any leg injury as Nick had been before. 

“There’s just enough space at the top, I can climb over, go get help--”

“Please, Greg--!”

But it was too late, right as Greg made it to the top, Nick could hear the buzzing of the collar, the sputtering of Greg’s breath, the scream of pain as he fell back to the ground--a sharp, gasping wheeze as his body bent backwards in pain--

“She’s watching us,” Nick cried to him, wanting nothing more than to wrap Greg in his arms, take away all of the pain that he didn’t deserve. 

Nick deserved it, though. He failed at the one job Veronica entrusted him to do, and because of that, she would certainly not let Nick keep him, dispose of Greg the way she disposed of Marsh, or Strombert, or all of her other “toys” that displeased her--even if it wasn’t their fault. It never was. 

It was Nick’s fault, which is why he didn’t even bother screaming as his numbness fizzled into a thousand needles pinching his skin as his own dose of electricity shook his body out of the thin coat of painted plastic which Veronica coated him with, that was shielding his consciousness from the reality of the white hot pain that spread through his veins like wildfire. 

This was just a warning shock, child’s play.

His true punishment would come later. 

And Greg would be the true victim of it. 


	13. Semantics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team comes together as Nick and Greg come up with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been two weeks but guess what! Another update might be coming very, very soon.
> 
> huge shoutout to @12percentplan and @impossiblepluto who helped me as I struggled with this chapter, I love you both!

When Morgan had suggested to Greg that he take a break, she fully expected him to come back in fifteen minutes or less after his encounter with his unknown “visitor.” It seemed that Greg was taking Nick’s disappearance the hardest out of all of them; whether it was from some guilt of being the last to find out about it, or a manifestation of the collective guilt shared by the entire team over the fact that Nick was missing for what very well could have been up to two weeks, she didn’t know. 

What she did know, however, is that Greg would not have left the lab without at least a text explaining he was chasing a lead, or inviting her to come along with him. Her stomach churned as she walked up to the lobby, found a piece of paper on the ground covered in shoe-prints from the bustling of lab technicians scrambling in their waiting for what little evidence they found to process. She picked it up, it was test results from toxicology on a sample of water that tested positive for drugs. Signed off by Henry Andrews, with the notation that it was for Greg Sanders. 

Why wouldn’t he disclose a water sample that he thought to have been drugged? Was the water used to drug Nick? If so, where did the water come from? They hadn’t been able to search Nick’s house yet, with the stakeout for Nick’s “girlfriend.” There didn’t seem to be any water in the car, unless Greg had found something that he didn’t tell Morgan about, given that he had taken the front while she had the back. Then again, the timeline wouldn’t fit between the time they began to process the car and the time that the test printout was made. 

And besides all of that, why would Greg hide such a pertinent piece of evidence?

Unless...he was somehow involved? 

“Judy, did you see Greg leave with his visitor he had about an hour ago?”

“No, I’m sorry, I had gone to the bathroom as soon as Greg showed up to meet the woman. We did just get those new security cameras installed, though.” 

Morgan looked at the camera before rushing to the A/V Lab. 

* * *

Sara’s fingers flipped the key she was trusted with to Nick’s house as she eyed his driveway from a distance. She wished they could just go in, scope the house--she couldn’t remember if his new one had a basement or not, because who’s to say that he wasn’t a prisoner in his own home? 

She was fuming at the idea, had to glue her hands to the steering wheel lest she emerge from the car and burst into his house. There was a chance that all of this was contrived, and although his self-imposed isolation to the rest of the team was hurtful and she wanted to retaliate, she couldn’t risk violating his trust, his privacy by barging into his house unannounced. 

And there was also the chance--a very slim chance, in her own opinion, that what the supposed “girlfriend” had said was true, that they were embarking on a trip to Texas.

A trip which, perhaps, never took place. Maybe both of them had gotten snatched up. Before their time. 

Before _ Nick’s _time, because it wasn’t his time, not here, not yet. It never was. 

She found an exchange between her and Nick echoing in her mind, from the day that he had given her the key, a couple years back upon her return to Vegas. 

_ “You giving me a car or something?” _

_ “Key to my house.” _

_ “It’s okay, I already found a new place--” _

_ “Not for that,” Nick chuckled. “For...you know, if-if something were to happen to me. Well, you know. Again. There’s nobody else I trust more.” _

_ “Not even Greg?” _

She smiled as she remembered how red his ears had turned at her comment, how happy she felt that he trusted her enough with such a responsibility, because she had given him his own key to her place, for the same reason. It was a grim realization the both of them had, that in their line of work, and especially with their luck, that terrible things happened and they wouldn’t want strangers investigating their homes for evidence, like Warrick had before he…

She shook her head, shook away a train of thought that led her down the path of _ what if? _ What if Nick’s fate would be the same as Warrick’s? Framed and then murdered. She got nauseous at the thought, but they had found _ his _ car with a dead body, _ his _ prints on the tie that had _ his _name on it. 

But hell, there was even the chance, given that this is Las Vegas, after all--that Nick may have been partaking in some...kinky shenanigans with his girlfriend, that a picture may have been accidentally taken and sent to Catherine, that his car may have been stolen. Wouldn’t be the first time. 

Just like it wasn’t the first time he had been framed, or at least, attempted to be framed.

Or the first time he had been kidnapped--and in fact, this was the third--causing her head to throb. 

The throbbing intensified with every vibration in her pocket, she dug out her phone with a heavy sigh of exasperation, but also of desperation, that maybe they had found him...

But they hadn’t. 

It was a text from Morgan, with yet another picture--grainy, from a security camera, but she could distinguish Nick’s “girlfriend,” standing besides Greg Sanders, seemingly walking out of the lab. Her heart began to race, her eyes ablaze in fury as she saw a familiar position, used by abusers as they take their victims to a more _ private _location. She seethed as she saw the words under the picture, a question from Morgan.

_ Is this Nick’s “girlfriend?” _

* * *

“So...DB. Name like that suits you for this job, I imagine,” Judge Stokes said with a cold smile as he sits opposite DB with his hands folded in front of him. Beyond the coldness, he could see the resemblance to Nick, the attitude and coolness reflected on the older Stokes, just as he could see his softer side apparent in his mother. 

“Roger…” Jillian hisses, nudging her husband in a warning tone.

“It’s quite alright. It stands for Diebenkorn,” Russell waves a hand, happy for the opportunity to bring an ounce of humor into a tense waiting period as they wait on Catherine to get out of interrogation.

“Ah. I understand it now.” 

Silence fell over the meeting room and DB found himself at an odd sort of loss as to what he should say, other than, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What are _ you _ sorry for?” Judge Stokes huffed with crossed arms and an icy glare. “You're not the one who should be sorry, the...the sick animal who did this to my son should be _ sorry.” _

More silence, and DB’s fingers swept over his phone, wanting to check it for any news. His lips tightened into a frown, wondering why he felt so...uncomfortable in talking to the family of the victim. He had done it before, more times than he could count, though he would admit he finds it easier to ease the minds of the youth of the family, than the adults. Perhaps it was because he felt he could almost trick the youth into retaining their innocence, their charm, whereas the adults had lost that a long time ago. And especially Nick’s parents, being part of the justice system themselves, they know the odds, between the suspected time frame of Nick’s disappearance which had stretched into the length of days, weeks, and also with the consideration that Nick was already on a downward spiral before the picture showed him in the depths of some sort of hell. 

“Do you have any idea who might have taken him this time?” Jillian asked as she brought up a finger to wipe her eyes.

“Didn’t he have a stalker a ways back, almost ten years ago?” Judge Stokes looked to his wife, he dug out his phone, dialed a number seemingly from memory. 

“What about that woman, from last year, the one that got away?” 

“Possibly--we’re not ruling her out. We don’t really have any evidence to suggest--”

“You don’t have any _ evidence _at all!” Judge Stokes growled as he kept the phone to his ear. 

“We did check,” DB gritted his teeth, ignoring Judge Stokes’ comment though his irritation was completely understandable, as DB shared the same frustration. “Crane is still behind bars.”

Judge Stokes kept his eyes locked on DB as he confirmed the information himself with a quick, routine phone call. Stubbornness was quite a trait in the Stokes family. 

DB felt as if he were losing the staring contest that ensued when he was rescued by the arrival of his colleagues.

“Jim, Catherine,” Judge Stokes stood up, greeted them with a warm cusp of their hands, DB raised his eyebrows as Catherine even kissed the older man on his cheek and he suddenly found himself a little...jealous? Of the ease in which Catherine was able to reign in the parents who were daring to slide down the same slope that had engulfed Nick. 

“We were able to interview the owner of the phone who sent us the picture,” Catherine informed the parents as Jillian nervously knitted her fingers together. 

“And?” Judge Stokes prodded impatiently.

“Asked for his lawyer after we laid out all our cards on the table,” Brass sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Judge Stokes clenched his fist, pounded it onto the table as Jillian cupped a hand over her mouth. 

“Hey, boss, can I show you something real quick?” Morgan interrupted, and DB felt the tension rise in the room even more.

“Not now, Morgan, give us a couple minutes--”

“Is it about Nick?” Jillian piped up. 

“Uhm, not...not exactly…”

“Well, then, it’s surely not that important--” Judge Stokes sneered, and suddenly DB had the urge to finally put his foot down.

“No, no, you know what, this can’t wait. Let’s go, Morgan.”

“You two might want to come too,” Morgan whispered to Brass and Catherine, before the entire room, including the uninvited parents, made their way to the A/V Lab.

* * *

“Can she hear us?” Greg croaked as he caught his breath from the shock. 

“I-I think so,” Nick swallowed hard, flashbacks of all the times Veronica seemed to show up whenever he got vocal--his shouting, his singing, his _ screaming. _And yet, her arrival wasn’t unique to his sounds alone, she showed up whenever she pleased to visit her “favorite pet.”

Or “favorite toy.” 

What difference did it make? It was just semantics--either way, he belonged to her. 

And now, Greg did, too, although she didn’t seem too attached to him, based on her previous dialogue, she wasn’t just keeping him around to keep Nick under a new level of control. 

She was keeping him for Nick. 

He was seething air in and out through his clenched teeth, so far concentrated on the threat of pain that kept him immobile, that he didn’t see Greg stand up, begin another ascension of the walls in his cage, until his eyes flickered to the unnerving, rising shadow in his periphery.

“What are you _ doing _Greg? Stop! She’ll s-shock you again.” 

“Let her, then,” Greg grunted, he was just about to swing a leg up when--

Sure enough, another shock came, and he fell on his injured arm, bringing a loud yell that echoed through the room, and Nick was plagued with a premonition. 

It was a path that Greg was heading towards if he didn’t stop fighting, a possible future where Greg was locked in a cage--_ Nick’s _cage, the birdcage, isolated for unending hours and forced to sing to Veronica’s content. Where he was dragged down the hallway over and over unless he gave in and crawled--but then again, he had done that already, because he was smarter than Nick, who had initially chosen the path of most resistance.

If Nick had the foresight to the longevity of his captivity, he would have given in a long time ago.

It would have made the pain easier, and maybe, just maybe, Veronica wouldn’t have had to break his leg.

He also saw Greg being punished, again and again but culminating in one final breaking point, the same breaking point that was reached with Strombert, only, it wouldn’t be Nick’s head on the chopping block, no. It would be Greg’s own head, another decoration for his birdcage.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“She’s gonna come back, and, and she’ll do worse,” Nick tried to convince him as Greg stood up again. If he could move, he would, move closer to the door, reach a hand out through the bars, try to physically appeal to his friend because he feared words would only get him so far. 

“She took me from the _ lab, _Nick,” Greg reminded him. “She’s not going to get away with this for much longer.”

“She’s not stupid, Greg.”

Greg made it about halfway up the cell before he was shocked back down to the ground.

“You said you weren’t here by choice,” Nick continued. He chose to stare up at the vast ceiling instead of Greg, in effort to keep his voice firm and steady, because looking at Greg in such a state sent his heart and voice into an erratic frenzy. “You think I am? For the last...two weeks? A-and I don’t know what she did, but she somehow managed to get y’all to think my absence was normal…”

“We thought you quit.”

“What? How?”

“Resignation letter mailed to DB.”

Nick shook his head and laughed darkly, looked over as Greg began to pace in his cell. 

“We didn’t believe it though, of course. None of us did. Not even DB.”

“Was this...before or after the picture?” Nick gulped. He got a sudden urge to sit up as his breathing increased, but a force field of pain kept him glued to the bed.

“What does it matter?” Greg groaned. 

“I just...want to know, that-that’s all. Want to know why--”

“Want to know why we abandoned you?” 

“That’s not--I never said--” 

Greg cut Nick off with a frustrated sigh as he began yet another ill-advised ascent.

“Yes, okay, I get it, Nick, we fucked up! We should have realized you were missing before we did, _ I _ should have realized...should have realized that Veronica was not who she said she was, should have realized I was being drugged, being _ used, _ but I didn’t, and I’m sorry, Nick, alright? Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m _ sorry!” _

Nick’s eyes stung and he shut them, brought his balled hands to rub them before Greg continued.

“But listen, what...whatever’s going on here, _ isn’t right-- _”

“Yeah, no shit!”

“--We need to get out of here.”

“How, Greg? Both of our experiences have shown us that we can’t climb our way out, and need I remind you, I’m down to one leg.”

“I, uh, don’t know if you noticed...but looks like Veronica forgot to lock up.”

“L-lock up wha-what?” Nick stammered.

“You! Your cell! I can see it from here, there’s no lock. You hear that, you stupid bitch? Your dumb ass forgot to lock Nick up!” Greg rattled the door to his cell. 

“Greg, that’s, that’s great ‘n all but...again, she ain’t that stupid,” Nick gestured towards his leg, he heard the sounds of shuffling in Greg’s cell. He vaguely wondered if Greg was trying to climb again.

“No offense, but is a broken leg really the most painful thing you’ve been through? Really?” Greg huffed, he sounded as if he were trying to work through some sort of feat of strength. Definite climbing.

Nick bit his lip, remained silent as he let the black void behind his closed eyes fill with echoes of past screams of past torments. 

A broken leg certainly didn’t compare to his broken body after being thrown out of a window.

All the shocks that had been given to him didn’t add up to a swarm of live fire ants devouring him for _ hours-- _he didn’t even flinch as he heard the buzz of the collar again, didn’t even feel it anymore.

All of the confinement, humiliation, the gunshot to his leg, the empty threats made with the gun; he wasn’t uncomfortable but rather felt as if he was right at home. 

“You can do this, alright, Nicky? I believe in you!” 

Greg was right. He could do this. He could roll off of the bed, crawl his way out, go to the surgery room, find something to pick Greg’s lock. 

He would have to be quick, because if Veronica was indeed watching, she would surely come as soon as she could to punish both of them for their scheming, and at this point, punishment for Nick, could very well mean death for Greg.

“I can do this,” Nick reaffirmed, nodding his head. He felt the fire light inside of him, a burst of hopeful adrenaline spreading to his extremities. “We can do this. Together.”

He took a few deep breaths to pump himself up, and he opened his eyes, sat up, looked to Greg--who was on the floor, lying down, looking towards the opposite end of the cell. His body completely limp, Nick had trouble seeing his chest rise and fall.

“Greg?”

There was no response from the other man, not even a twitch. He either passed out, or...he was...

“Greg!” 

Dead. 

“GREG!” 

* * *

On some level, she knew she wouldn’t get away with it for much longer. She had done a few laps around the neighborhood at various points throughout the day, and the same car was parked at the same spot across from Nick’s house all day, while the house it was sitting in front of seemed to be deserted. 

“I told you, Veronica, not to get too attached to the product,” her mentor had scolded over the phone as she sat at the end of the block, keeping her eyes on the stakeout car. She put the phone on speaker, turned on her feed to watch as Greg tried again and again to climb over the cell, shocking him every time he got close. 

“And I told _ you _ , this one is _ mine. _He’s not a product for sale.”

She moved her attention to Nick, squirming uncomfortably on the bed, her thumb waved over the screen on top of his exposed body. She wished that they had more time together, there was so much she didn’t get to do with him, or his little friend for that matter, either.

“You can’t say much, anyway, given that you broke your own rule,” she pointed out, and she smiled to herself, picturing the flustered blushing on her mentor’s face.

“You know, having a pet is a lot of responsibility,” the mentor continued in a mock-fatherly tone. “If you really want to keep him, you’re gonna have to take extra measures, especially with someone of his status in law enforcement.”

“I know,” Veronica sighed. “Look, just make sure I get the tapes, okay? I’m gonna split town as soon as I can.”

She hung up the phone, sent one last shock to Greg, and closed the feed. She opened the car door, tossed the phone underneath the driver’s seat behind the wheel. She could hear the crunch as she drove forward, but she suppressed her glee, she saw the clearing ahead of her but there were still a few obstacles in her way. She pulled into the driveway, walked into the house. She did a quick sweep in the small window of time she was allotted to put the final touches on the home, small personal rearrangements that she hoped Nick would appreciate.

She found herself with a little extra time, which was surprising, she thought they would have come to get her by now, so she used the time to gussy up in the mirror. She had to look her best, she had a show to put on, after all.

* * *

“This is unbelievable! How the fuck did _ nobody _see this happen? You know what, I’m making a call right now, there’s gonna be uniforms posted on every in and out to this building…” Brass ranted as he exited the room with his phone in hand.

“Is that...Greg?” Jillian asked tentatively as she and Judge Stokes shuffled into the room. “He was...he’s such a sweet man, Nick...Nick and he…”

“Is that her?” Judge Stokes hissed, pointing to the screen. “Is that the woman who took Nick?” 

“Morgan,” DB gestured for her to sweep the parents out of the room, as he and Catherine directed their attention to the big screen display of the lab’s security camera. The screen next to it showed a collage of altering traffic cameras.

“I’ve been working with traffic control to follow the car they got into, you can see them get into that blue Ford from a camera across the street--” Archie brought up the footage of Veronica shoving Greg into the passenger’s seat of the car. “I’ve been following the car driving all over, obviously trying to deflect. I almost lost them, but I got them heading off of Charleston into the outskirts of town before there’s no more footage.” 

He brought up the final image, a close up of the car, and a grainy image of Greg Sanders, looking dazed and confused in the passenger’s seat, while the driver had a menacing smile on her face. 

“Good work, Archie,” Catherine placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “That narrows it down, lots of abandoned buildings in that area, perfect place to hide them.”

“We’ll take a unit and go door-to-door,” DB confirmed as Catherine’s phone rang and they began to rush to the parking garage.

“What do you got, Sara?” 

“We got her.” 


	14. Down Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica is interviewed, Nick and Greg find themselves in the hands of a saving grace…but will they be the same now that they’re free?

Her fingers were decorated with rings, familiar rings, Sara worked her memory overtime to figure out where she had seen them before, but she was distracted by watching those fingers fondle a small black box attached to a key ring. It appeared to be a garage door opener, but had more than the normal amount of buttons. 

“So, my boyfriend is missing and you’re what, keeping me on ice in this tiny little room? Hardly comforting.”

“You seem hardly broken up over it all,” Sara noted, an statement that seemed to hold some truth, as the woman kept such a casual air about her, definitely not giving off the same vibe as someone whose significant other was missing. 

“You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Miss Sidle. You never know how someone is  _ truly  _ feeling inside. Perhaps you can start asking me questions instead of hurtful accusations.”

“You know, you never told us your name, so why don’t we start there?”

“Veronica.” 

“Veronica what?” Brass asked with open hands, his mock-pleasant tone covering up his and Sara’s communal suspicion. 

“Veronica Sawyer,” she sneered. Sara caught the reference, a fake name. “I don’t see how my last name is going to help find Nick.” 

“When was the last time you saw Nick?” 

“Couple days ago, when we cancelled our trip to Texas.”

“Why was it cancelled?”

“Nick caught a bug, or something, spent some time at home all bundled up. I did my best to take care of him, but the poor thing, he  _ insisted  _ on going to a hospital,” Veronica sighed, her fingers sliding over one of the buttons on the black box. “So, he drove off and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“And you didn’t think to call anybody?”

“Oh, I did, of course. I came to get Greg, I presume...that’s why I’m here, of course?” 

Veronica raised an eyebrow, her lips curling into a smile as she eyed a picture sticking out of a manilla folder in front of Sara. 

“You must have seen me on the video cameras, escorting Greg out of the lab--” she laughed in a reminiscent manner. “I had come out here to see if maybe he had changed his mind, tried to get his job back with his little fever brain. What a sweetheart, Greg was, he offered to go with me to go look for Nick.”

“Why not go to the authorities?” 

“Well, you see, poor Nicky, bless his soul, I know he wouldn’t want the attention if it turned out that it was nothing but a misunderstanding. But then again, I suppose since we’re having this conversation,” Veronica put on what Sara would consider to be mock-sadness, as she leaned in with her lips puckered out in a slight pout. “I’m guessing it’s not...although, this might be.”

“Do you know where Greg Sanders is now?” Brass asked in a weary tone.

“I’m not sure, we had split up to go look for Nick, and I went back home,” Sara’s nostrils flared, that house was  _ not  _ Veronica’s home, and that bitch damn well knew that, too, “to see if Nick came back, I was getting ready to go on another search, when you showed up at my door.” 

“Tell me, do you have any leads on where he might be?” Veronica asked to change the subject as she leaned back into the chair.

“Do you know a man named Herbert Donlam?” Brass asked.

“Doesn’t ring a bell, why?” 

“He sent us a pretty picture…and a cry for help.”

Sara kept eye contact with Veronica as she wordlessly opened the file in front of her, took out a printed copy of the picture they received in the text, she watched as Veronica continued to fondle the black box, her finger pressing down on one of the buttons at the sight of Nick. Sara watched as her lips twitched in and out of a tight frown, her eyes narrowed and as she studied the picture, lifted it with her hand to examine it closer.

“My, my, my. What’s happened to you, baby?” 

“Why don’t you tell us?”

Veronica looked up and tossed the picture onto the table.

“How would  _ I  _ know?”

“You know,” Sara cleared her throat, shifted her position, folded her hands in front of her to keep them from wringing Veronica’s neck. “Nick was taken, around the same time last year, by a very sick, twisted woman who paralyzed him, sliced him up, chained him in a dark, enclosed closet, after brutally murdering an innocent cop. We think that she may have come back to finish what she started.”

“Any idea what this...bitch looks like?” Veronica asked as she squinted her eyes. She pressed the same button again.

“We have a sketch, made by Nick. See the resemblance?” Brass took out a sketch of a woman with similar features to Veronica, but more than a few differences to keep them distinguishable from each other.

“Ah, I see. You two think I did not just this,” Veronica points to the picture. “But what happened to my poor sweetheart last year, too?  _ And  _ to poor ‘Greggo?’”

She laughed, a cold, callous laugh, and pressed another button on the key chain. Sara gulped as she wondered what those buttons could do, but she smiled as she caught Veronica’s slip up.

“We never said anything happened to Greg.”

“That’s one of his nicknames, you know. For his  _ best  _ friend,” Veronica pointedly said to Sara in deflection.

“I know that,” Sara replied flippantly. “Why do you think something happened to Greg?” 

“Funny how Nick talks about  _ Greg  _ all the time, but he  _ never  _ mentioned you, Sara. Are you two ex-lovers or something?” 

Sara swallowed down a rising bile.

“Do you know where Greg Sanders is?”

“Though, if you ask me,” Veronica leaned in, now pressing both buttons together at the same time, spoke in a low whisper. “I think they had some sort of secret affair, they act like they’re...more than just friends.”

“Do you know where Nick Stokes is?”

“I’ve seen them touch each other in a way that ‘just friends’ certainly do not. I’ve even seen them  _ kiss.” _

“Enough of this, what do you know about the whereabouts of Greg Sanders and Nick Stokes?” Sara slammed her hand down on the table. Veronica smirked as she crossed her arms.

“I know  _ nothing,”  _ Veronica spat. “And I’m guessing you don’t either, if you’re sitting here wasting time with me instead of looking for them!” 

“Alright, this is getting nowhere,” Brass muttered, waved a hand over his mouth, began to get up but Sara kept her ground, pulled out another sheet of paper, placed it in front of Veronica, with another picture, a shot from the security camera, of Veronica in a car with Greg.

“You drugged him,” Sara explained. She watched Veronica’s body language stiffen, her eyes moved slowly from the pictures to Sara’s eyes, so piercing that Sara would admit that she felt slightly put off, not quite intimidated, but rather realized she would need to be cautious in her accusations. She was playing chess with an opponent who was seemingly five moves ahead, and both of them knew it.

“Why would I drug one of Nick’s friends? Even if I was a little jealous, I would never,” Veronica scoffed. “What are these results from?”

Sara pursed her lips into her mouth, breathed deep through her nose.

“Ah, you don’t know, do you?” 

“It came from a bottle of water.”

“Oh!” Veronica laughed incredulously. “A bottle of water, that you can get  _ anywhere,  _ though I suppose you feel like you don’t have the time to go testing every bottle of water in the city of Las Vegas, when there are more...pressing matters at hand.”

“Tell me, does that look like the face of a man who’s sober?” Sara asked Veronica, pointing at Greg’s dazed expression, his eyes crossed, inattentive.

“We stopped for dinner while looking all over town for Nick. He mentioned something didn’t sit well with him. Have you checked his apartment, maybe he’s sleeping it off?” 

“We did, it’s empty.”

“You-you don’t think that Greg might be with Nick right now, do you? With his pants off, a collar around his neck, being...being tortured or worse?  _ Dead?”  _ Veronica asked in a hushed whisper.

“We’re not ruling it out,” Brass huffed as Sara silently seethed.

“Just like you’re not ruling me out yet, either, huh?” She shook her head and put on a Southern drawl. “No wonder Nick wanted to quit working with y’all. So quick to judge, can’t cop to your own shortcomings, going around accusing people without substantial evidence. His mother certainly didn’t raise him to be like  _ you.” _

Veronica continued to engage in a staring match with Sara as the door flew open, and a hurricane rushed in, shaking off the officer’s attempt to hold her back.

“His mother raised him just fine, I’ll thank you very much!” 

“Why, you must be Mrs. Stokes. Although, I’m sure I’ll be calling you ‘Mama Stokes’ in next to no time. Do you like my ring? Nick gave it to me,” Veronica cooed, held out her hand for all to see, and Sara gaped as she realized that’s where she had seen the rings before, on Nick’s hand. 

“But that...that’s the ring I gave Nicky for his birthday…” Jillian muttered.

"Don't worry he didn't propose with this, but he was definitely on his knees when he gave it to me."

“YOU BITCH! WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS MY SON?” Jillian screamed, lunged forward, reaching for Veronica’s hair, pulling it in every direction possible. Sara made no movement to stop the attack, Brass hesitated before he assisted the officer in removing Jillian Stokes from the room.

“Assault! This is assault! I’m calling my lawyer!” Veronica screeched as she stood up from the chair, pointing after Jillian, the last siren of chaos before room fell into stark silence.

“Looks like you got off on the wrong foot with your future mother-in-law,” Sara quipped as Veronica straightened her hair.

“Well, Ms. Sidle, seeing as you’ve resorted to childish insults, I’ll presume we have no more business to conduct here, especially considering as you have nothing to hold me on.” 

Sara remained silent, but got up and opened the door for Veronica to exit. Jillian was waiting in the hallway, her arms gripped by Brass and the officer as Judge Stokes caressed her cheeks, brushed her frenzied hair out of her face. No sooner had Veronica stepped into the hallway than Jillian spewed a wad of spit into the woman’s face. Veronica lifted a hand and slowly wiped it off before she turned to walk towards the exit, escorted by another officer.

Sara’s phone rang, and she answered without looking at the screen, her eyes focused on Veronica.

“Sara, we found them!” Catherine’s voice breathed, though it was hard to distinguish over the loud static that she would later realize was a blend of shouts and screams.

“You found them?” Sara repeated loudly. She saw as Veronica paused before continuing down the hallway. “You found Nick and Greg?”

“We-we did, yeah. We’re getting them out--But, listen, do you still have that woman in interrogation? Greg, he--”

“IT WAS HER!” Greg screamed over Catherine’s dialogue. “IT WAS HER ALL ALONG! I-I DIDN’T KNOW!” 

Sara’s face fell into an expression that was a blend of hurt and rage, Veronica stood at the end of the hallway and Greg’s voice continued to shout as she could hear another voice of equal volume sobbing...and screaming.

“I can’t! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I CAN’T!” 

Veronica smiled, winked at Sara before she turned her back completely and left her eyesight. 

“IT WAS HER!” 

* * *

There was a certain level of silence he had grown accustomed to, while sitting in his cell for the past two weeks, whenever Veronica would leave him alone. The sounds of creaking pipes and dripping water had been filtered out, and he was left with nothing but his own breathing, his own singing, his own screaming, his own crying. 

For a short time, the silence had been filled in the company of fellow victims, though there were certain measures taken to keep them from making too much noise. At most, he only ever heard whimpers, gurgles, feeble attempts at speech before they reached a crescendo of screams that had seemed to echo for hours after they ended.

When they were taken away, and he was left in silence, he could still hear their sounds, even though they were gone. Could still hear his own sounds, or any sound that Veronica created.

Especially her footsteps.

He tended to hyper-focus on her footsteps, thunderous, like a giant. Each movement had shaken him, because if she was in the building, she was coming for  _ him.  _ To play with or to punish, or both. He had grown to anticipate the pain associated with the contact of her shoes so appropriate stepping all over his blood stained into the cement floor.

But right now, there were no footsteps, no whimpers, no screams, no sound at all. No need for any alarm, and yet, his whole body was dripping with dread. He couldn’t even hear his own shaky breathing as he sat himself up. He could hear nothing at all, just absolute silence, because there was no sound coming out of Greg Sanders, whose exposed body was lying limp in the cell opposite him, hadn’t responded to any of his calls in the last five minutes. His eyes betrayed him, making him think that he was breathing, but the whole  _ room  _ was breathing, so if Greg was indeed breathing, the rise and fall of his chest would certainly not align to the rise and fall of the latticed and stone walls. 

“Greg! Pl-please, wake up! Veronica! Veronica, please, come--come help him! I’ll do anything you want, just, please!” he pleaded. He had managed to sit up, swung his good leg over the bed, but he knew his broken leg would pose a painful challenge. 

No amount of physical pain he could endure would even match up to the emotional pain he was feeling, with the thought that Greg Sanders was in fact dead, and not just unconscious, a state in which Nick had fallen into himself, many times in the past two weeks. 

Then again, he underestimated the pain of the broken leg, or perhaps he wasn’t screaming out of the movement as he fell onto the floor, but rather out of the existential anguish of having to continue living while his best friend was dead. 

He almost felt as if he had somehow become immortal in becoming one of Veronica’s playthings, outliving those that dared to defy her. He had only survived out of sheer favoritism at this point, he was only alive because she willed him to be alive. Although, a part of him wondered if he was capable of becoming “boring” to her whims, and if she would dispose of him like she had everyone else around him, whether she sold him, or killed him. 

It was selfish, he thought, to think of himself and his future, while somewhere out in the  _ real  _ world, the mother of Greg Sanders was blissfully unaware of her son’s capture, and subsequent death.

He hoped that Catherine was the one to deliver the news, one mother to another. She had done wonders in comforting his own mother during all of the unfortunate events that had befallen him in the past seven years since his first abduction.

“Greg!” he called out through his screams as he finally settled into his new position on the floor, a fetal position, as his hands cradled the broken leg that impaired him from a frantic attempt to revive Greg. He wondered how long it took him to get over his “tantrum”--he knew Veronica would refer to it as such. He pounded a fist to the ground, the more time he took to get out, the more time Greg would  _ remain  _ dead. 

“I...I should apologize to you, too, you know,” Nick began to talk, because he couldn’t take the deafening silence any longer, though he could hardly hear his own voice over a loud, piercing ringing that pounded his ear drums. “I was...It was stupid of me, to push you away. Shut you out, when really, I needed that-that hand to hold, and you offered it to me, and I shoved it away.”

His eyes burned, Nick shut them as he rolled over so that he was on his stomach, and he began a slow, cautious attempt to move his body around. The door was  _ just  _ within his reach, so long as he was facing the door and not one of the stone walls. 

“A-and granted, you kinda pushed me away too, and I ain’t gonna lie, that, that stung like hell but you were right. I need help. And I promise you, i-if I get out of here, I’ll get it. Cause I value your opinion, I value... _ you... _ and I...I never stopped loving you, Greg.”

His voice hitched at the man’s name, he allowed his face to fall into the wet concrete, into the dried stains of his own defecation from his defiance to use the bedpan. He felt a familiar sensation constrict his neck, electricity spread through his veins.

“I deserve this,” he gulped as he recovered from the shock. “I deserve all...all of this. But...I want to make things right.”

He waited for the room to stop vibrating before uncurling himself. In the spasm from the shock, he had been able to move a couple of inches towards the cell. He reached a hand, his fingers were just able to touch the door--he shifted his body by mere inches, he was able to wrap his fingers around the lattice, he was just about to push when--

_ Bzzzrt!  _ He yelped and writhed, and in his struggle against the shock, he rolled away, he was almost back to where he started, shouting curse words as tears of pain, tears of mourning formed a rapid waterfall down his reddened face, his veins pulsed against his skin, threatening to burst as his vocal chords stretched to their limit, cracked and ripped before he felt silent, too. 

This was it.

He was dead.

He had nothing left. 

No friends, to offer their shoulders to cry on.

No family, to shield him from the world. 

No Greg, who understood him like nobody else had before, knew him almost better than he knew himself. 

It was a good thing, he tried to tell himself, because not even Veronica could find him in the neverending black void of non-existence. 

Finally, he was free. 

But, a startled scream that recovered into a pained groan--not of his own doing--told him he wasn’t entirely alone in this void. 

“Ah, fuck…” the other voice grunted. “Nick?” 

“G-Greg?” Nick squeaked out. 

“Nick, I’m...It’s okay, man, I’m here. I’m really here.” 

“You’re...what?” 

“I’m not dead. I’m alive.”

“What the  _ fuck,  _ Greg?” Nick felt a hand around for his discarded bed pan, threw it against the cage wall, incidentally pushed it open by a few inches. Some sort of cosmic joke, as he was back at square one, all of his energy stolen into the collar, and freedom was just out of reach.

“I figured...figured if I pretended to be dead, Veronica could come,” Greg groaned as he sat up. “I could distract her, maybe overpower her?”

“And you couldn’t tell me ‘bout this plan?” Nick fumed as he propped himself up on his elbows.

“Dude, she’s  _ listening. _ You even tried to get her here yourself! I was dead but I wasn’t deaf. I heard...everything.” 

Nick’s tongue waved over his dry lips. 

“Do...do you really feel that way?” Greg asked. “You still--” 

Greg’s speech was snatched up in another shock, one that spread to Nick, too. Through his own spasm, he reached towards Greg, the distorted perspective from his squinting eyes making it seem like his hand was wrapping around Greg. He wished he could actually wrap his hand around Greg, shield him from all the pain, pull him to his chest, hold him against the beating heart that’s only beating so long as Greg is still  _ safe.  _

As their dueling screams faded into recovering shudders of breath, Nick’s heart ceased beating as he heard a  _ thud.  _ And then another. And another.

Footfalls.

She was here. 

She was here and she was coming to punish them. 

Giant fingers, a woman’s hand, slowly entered the frame of his view from the edge of the hallway. Veronica’s hand, sifting through her toy box, reaching for Greg. 

“NO! Veronica, no, please!” Nick shouted. She was going to take Greg, and he’d have another decoration for his birdcage. “Take me instead! Leave him alone, take me!” 

“It was her!” Greg blurted out as the fingers rattled the cage, hiding him from view, but Nick could hear that he was crying. “Cath, it was her all along!” 

Cath? What, was he getting delirious? Nick’s heart pinged at the thought, that Greg was now sharing the same feelings of abandonment that he had--and now feared that his twisted dream of the team vying to purchase Nick had come true--Did he think Catherine was doing all of this? Did Catherine willingly give up him and Nick to Veronica? 

“Don’t touch him! Get away from him!” Nick screamed as he tried to move, but the pain of his broken leg kept him rooted to the spot, he shut his eyes but didn’t see darkness, but a white hot flash before he opened them again, and the hand had now turned, towards him.

The hand teased open his cell, was flexing, he screamed in anticipated the sensation of the fingers wrapping around his body and part of him regretted it all, because certainly Veronica would never let him live down his compliance to her, but at the same time, he’d gladly go with her if it meant keeping Greg out of her clutch. 

He shut his eyes, could already feel his body lift up, limp, no longer in his own control, but instead of a warm blanket of flesh surrounding his cold exposed skin, he felt the sensation of a smaller hand touch him on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Nick, it’s alright, bud,” a soft voice told him, another hand cupped his cheek. 

“IT WAS HER!” Greg screamed, and Nick opened his eyes, let out a soft sob of relief, as Veronica’s giant hand was gone, and DB Russell was crouching in front of him.

“Let’s get this damn thing off of you,” DB muttered as his hands moved to the collar around Nick’s neck. 

“N-no, d-don’t, sh-she’ll…” Nick began to cry. 

“She can’t hurt you anymore, it’s over, okay?” 

DB removed the collar, and Nick’s neck felt even colder than the rest of his body, but it also felt so  _ sore.  _ He moved his trembling fingers and felt the raw skin, gasping into another sob as his body shook violently. 

“G-Greg…” he cried.

“It’s okay, Catherine’s here too, she’s helping him,” DB soothed the man, his hands having returned to stroke his shoulder. “We’re getting you boys out of here.”

Nick laughed in the sheer absurdity, that he was so far gone that he was envisioning his salvation, and he wondered when he would find himself back in reality, in a twisted punishment for his latest escape attempt. Veronica certainly wouldn’t appreciate that he took off his collar.

But when he shut his eyes and opened them again, he was still in the same scene, DB was still in front of him, Greg was still screaming, he could hear Catherine’s voice soothing Greg.

“Y-yeah?” Nick asked tentatively. “You’re...you’re really here?”

DB’s stern face softened, his fingers gripped Nick as gentle as he did firm, to which Nick began to cry as he realized the answer to his own question.

“Yes, we’re here, Nick. C’mon, let’s go,” DB motioned for them to leave the cell and Nick nodded. He stood up, lifted Nick up with him, hoisting an arm around his shoulder. Nick groaned and DB paused, but he held up a hand, waved for him to continue. It was a short walk to the cell door, but once they reached it, Nick gripped the threshold. 

“I...I can’t,” he whispered to DB. He couldn’t walk through that door. Not like this. 

“It’s okay, there’s a stretcher in the hall waiting for you--” 

“IT WAS HER! IT WAS HER ALL ALONG, I-I DIDN’T KNOW!” 

“No, I _can’t!”_ Nick cried. He twisted himself out of DB’s hold, collapsed to the ground, landing poorly on his injured leg, sending him into another fit of screams and sobs.

“It’s okay, Nick, you can come out now,” DB’s voice transformed into Veronica’s, a harsh reminder to Nick of what he needed to do...but he just... _ couldn’t.  _

“I can’t! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I CAN’T!” 

He couldn’t walk out of the cell. He knew better than that, to risk punishment. Especially when punishment would not just be inflicted on him, but on Greg, too.

He had to crawl. 

He had to crawl, or he would  _ die.  _

He put his hands in front of him, readied himself, but he knew he couldn’t  _ actually  _ crawl with his broken leg, he fell flat on his face. 

“I can’t, I can’t do it!” he sobbed into a balled fist. He bit down on his knuckles in effort to direct the pain elsewhere, but the pain just wouldn’t go away.

“Oh, Nick…” DB sighed, he must have realized, in part at least, why Nick couldn’t leave. He fell to his knees, picked up Nick and cradled him against his chest, allowing him to sob into his vest as he held the back of his head. “It’s okay, we got you. We got you.” 


	15. Sea of Gregs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue has finally arrived, though Nick doesn't really feel saved.

Crossing the threshold of the cell proved to be less of a relief and more of a nightmare.

As soon as Nick fell to his knees, DB scooped him up in a clumsy embrace, sat with him until fierce sobs faded into shivering whimpers—Nick’s skin had felt hot, clammy, he most likely had a fever from his inflamed leg—but something sunk down DB’s chest as he realized how  _ cold  _ Nick must feel in such an exposed state, the man seemed to hug himself with the crossed arms that clutched onto the fabric on DB’s chest. He wondered where the shirt that Nick was wearing in the picture had gone, but thought it best that he pondered that at a later time.

“Hey, buddy, you ready?” DB asked softly as Nick nodded, his face still buried in into DB’s vest, but he lifted it up, a faint imprint of the clothing apparent on his skin. “Okay, let’s get you out of here.”

He tried to stand up, lift Nick up with him. There was a paramedic waiting in the hallway, DB’s eyes flickered and made contact with a curt nod, but Nick remained on the floor, on knee as he tried to keep pressure off of the other. DB crouched down again, resting a hand on Nick’s shoulder. Nick had put his hands on the cement, his head lowered but DB could hear as he tried to regain control of his breathing. 

“C-can’t...walk through…” he sniffled. “Gotta crawl.”

“No, you don’t,” DB whispered. “The collar’s gone, you don’t have to.” 

“Yes, I do. Her toys don-don’t walk.”

“Nick, you are not a toy, alright? You’re a human being.”

“Sh-she’ll hu-hurt…” Nick scratched at the reddened skin around his neck as DB tried to lift him, but he made himself dead weight, a stone, not budging. 

“She can’t hurt you anymore, and the collar’s gone,” DB soothed him as he quickly realized that Nick hadn’t just been held prisoner, that the collar wasn’t just some sort of sick accessory, but was a  _ conditioning  _ tool—in the corner of his eye, he saw how the collar vibrated, a motion which was audible enough for Nick to hear and flinch in response.

“She’ll hurt Greg!” Nick cried out.

“Greg’s fine, Greg’s safe, c’mon, we’ll go see him.”

“He’s safe?” 

“Yeah, Cath’s got him. She’s got him.” 

“ _ She’s  _ got him?” Nick blurted out worriedly. He lifted his head up, his eyes wide, watery. Terrified.

“No, not-not  _ her,  _ Catherine, Nick. Catherine’s got him. We’re going to get you out of here so you can see him.”

Nick fell silent, ducked his head down again in a nod. 

“Can I have a...a blanket, or something?” he asked in a low, hushed whisper. “It’s kinda cold.” 

DB let out a soft, humorless chuckle as Nick let the corners of his lips twitch into a sheepish  _ almost- _ smile, out of nervousness, but it was a good enough indication to DB that Nick was finally ready to leave this hellhole. 

“There’s one on the stretcher. Now, we’re gonna get you past the door, and then--what’s your name?” DB pointed to the paramedic, lowered his voice into a whisper. “Dean? Dean. Dean’s going to put you on the stretcher, okay?”

“Okay…” Nick sniffled. DB swung one of Nick’s arms over his shoulder, again, and they stood up, again. DB met Nick’s eyes again, and Nick nodded, and finally, they took a step. 

It was a small step, but a step nonetheless. 

They took another, and DB smiled, a wave of relief washed over him. Just one more and they would be out…

One of Nick’s bare feet landed outside of the threshold, and DB felt Nick’s body react in a violent shudder, before he lurched forward, spewing out his body’s resistance to his disobedience onto the blood stained concrete beneath them. 

“It’s okay,” DB reassured him. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick gasped between retches. DB passed him to the paramedic, who gently set him on the stretcher, and DB frowned as Nick’s face flushed, and he tried to cover up his exposed member with his legs and trembling hands. DB unfolded the blanket, covered him as the paramedic worked to strap him in—the action made Nick tense up, his face contorted. DB’s eyes flickered down the hallway, past the paramedic and he honed in on the straps hanging off of the table. 

“Maybe, uh, maybe we don’t have to…?”

Dean nodded, began to pull the stretcher down the hallway, but Nick suddenly convulsed as the stretcher bounced, acting as a trigger for the breakdown that DB thought had finally ceased to continue in roaring fashion, as Nick rolled off of the stretcher, landing, of course, on his bad leg. 

The screams would not stop ringing in DB’s ears for days to come.

“NO! NO! PLEASE!” Nick screamed as he was lifted quickly back onto the stretcher, and the straps were laid across his body, tightened, snapped into buckles, every  _ click _ enticing a shake of Nick’s head, a change in pitch, his screams getting higher and more intense with every turn of his head, every jerk of his torso. 

“I’m sorry, bud! It’s for your own good!” DB shouted over the hoarse roar from the struggling man. Though Nick was constricted, he was still able to jerk violently, he tried to fight his way out of the straps, tried to stop the stretcher from moving by looping his fingers around the metal wires of the cell door. His screams ended with a tight purse of his lips as his face screwed into itself in concentration, DB saw veins protrude out of his skin, his knuckles turning as white as bone as he worried that he was either going to amputate his fingers, or— _ pop! Cruuuuunch.  _

The screams were even louder than before.

“I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!” Nick was screaming as his arm went limp, his fingers loosened and contracted, frozen as the stretcher flew back, almost toppling upside down from the unexpected release, but with DB’s help, Dean managed to wrangle control, and they got out of the hall as quickly as they could. 

Nick kept apologizing, for what or to whom, DB didn’t know, but he soon found himself left out of comforting words to offer him as they traversed through to the lobby. The message he and Catherine had seen written in blood as they entered now even more haunting as he realized it was meant for this moment, for Nick’s inevitable rescue. 

And more specifically, for  _ Nick. _

_ “Come play again soon.”  _

The door was opened into the hot Nevada air, and DB saw the conflict of emotions on Nick’s face as he was brought out into the daylight for presumably the first time in the two weeks, based on his adverse reaction to the sudden, intense light on his face. 

Part of him seemed a little relieved, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air, though DB saw him squirm underneath the blanket tucked around him, saw shame shroud his eyes until they lit up as they drew nearer to the ambulance.

To Catherine and Greg.

“Oh, Nicky!” Catherine cried out as Dean was assisted by the other paramedic--who must have previously tended to Greg’s freshly bandaged arm. A blanket was slung over the other half of his body, his hand pressing down on his lap. Nick was lifted into the ambulance and the stretcher was sat up, Catherine wasted no time in grabbing Nick’s shoulder with one hand and stroking his hair with the other. She planted a kiss on his forehead, before pulling it underneath her chin, and DB’s heart warmed as Nick nuzzled into the hold, rather than some adverse reaction.

Catherine’s gaze moved towards the observing DB as she continued to comfort a silently crying Nick, and the last thing DB saw before the ambulance was closed was Greg’s hand intertwining with Nick’s fingers.

* * *

Everything from the minute Nick thought he heard Veronica’s footsteps, coming to punish Greg for his scheme to get out, to the moment he finally felt fully in control of his body—or rather, he should say, fully conscious, was a hazy whirlwind of chaos. 

Because he wasn’t in control, not yet. Maybe not ever again. His body was nothing but a rag doll, picked up and thrown down and manipulated, “for his own good” according to a familiar, almost fatherly voice he never thought he’d ever actually hear again. He tried to tell them, hell even  _ begged  _ with hoarse screams that he didn't even know he was still able to produce  as he felt his body lifted, restrained, and floated out of hell and into an even more intense light. The desert sunlight had never felt so good and yet, so harsh. It cooked his body alive, but he felt a different warmth from the fire, the warmth of comfort. 

A hand on his cheek, sliding up through his hair, soft lips pressing against his forehead, cradling his head to a chest with a beating heart. It couldn’t be Veronica, no, her lips had thorns, and she had no heart. 

He felt another hand, one that fit exactly with his own, based on the size and shape, it had to be  _ Greg’s  _ hand.

His heart fluttered, he could even feel his lips curl upwards. Greg was safe.

Greg was safe and he was safe, they were safe  _ together.  _

He was almost relieved.

Until he felt more hands that pulled him away, grabbing at his dislocated shoulder, grabbing at his broken leg. Hands that covered his eyes, his mouth, his ears, his nose—he couldn’t feel anything, and he was stuffed into a suffocating void. He couldn’t breathe, not that it mattered,  _ dolls didn’t need to breathe _ , so Veronica told him—couldn’t see anything but blackness, couldn’t smell anything, but he could hear distant drilling sounds, wondered if nails were drilling into the invisible coffin around him.

He shut his eyes at the sound, and when he opened them again, he was in another place, filled with noise—distant, fading footsteps, chirps and beeps, a chorus of voices. A place filled with light, with the stench of chemicals that reminded Nick of one of two scents; crime scene clean-up—perhaps they were there to clean up the mess he left behind in his cell, and a hospital—he really must be dreaming, because Veronica would  _ never  _ take him there.

He allowed his eyes to scope out the room, he was in Desert Palm, based on the layout of the room. Three of the walls covered in glass, an unoccupied bed next to him with a retractable partition. Part of him was surprised he even recognized the surroundings, because the edges of his vision were still blurry, his head was difficult to maneuver, but his heart pounded as he saw differences—minor as they were, from his last stay, an indication that this wasn’t just some sort of an illusion. 

Though his arm was still in a sling, like the last time he was there, he gulped as he could still feel the holes pulse with blood, the line Veronica had drawn between them searing hot. He felt his hand jerk away from his chest, and then back to it, some sort of backwards pulley system.

He shifted his legs, rubbed them against fabric and he breathed with some relief, he wasn’t naked anymore, though winced at the thought that someone had  _ dressed  _ him. Phantom giggles and eager claps about “dress-up” time, which wasn’t really dress-up at all, just mocking Nick by throwing his own clothes at him, and then taking them away and ripping them to shreds.

He threw his head back into a shake, tried to expel Veronica’s voice from his mind, the sudden movement reminded him of the pain in his leg, and he tried to shift his weight off of it, but found that his leg was frigid, wouldn’t move, something pushing back against his pull. Something flashed before his eyes, he shut them tight as he fought to catch his breath, but when he opened them all he could see was a blinding light. Shutting them again, he found that the ambient sounds of the hospital were gone, the hospital odor replaced with something much more foul.

He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, waiting for the flashing to stop, because he was suddenly back in his cage—the  _ bird cage _ , and not in the hospital, but once he managed to convince his brain that he was, in fact, in a firm, uncomfortable hospital bed and not on harsh cold steel, he found that the bird cage had come with him.

It was wrapped around his leg, a few of the metal bars splitting and sticking through his leg, he groaned as he realized  _ that  _ was the source of the drilling noise. He watched as the bars stretched both away and towards him, threatening to encase his entire body.

“No...no, please…” he muttered, he tried to move his hands to stop the bars from snaking over his entire body, but as he moved them, they were pulled back too, long tubes sticking into his skin, liquid flowing in and out, and suddenly his limbs were out of his control.

He was a puppet, made to dance for the cooing crowd outside of the glass door that caught his attention as he heard a gentle rapt at the door, followed by the entry of DB Russell, a piece of paper held between two hands cupped together over his stomach. 

“Nicky,” the man smiled warmly, walked over to Nick. He could feel his breathing quicken, his heart rise and fall with alarming fashion as he wondered why DB was moving so...slow, careful, as if with every step he took, Nick would just  _ explode  _ or something— _ not again,  _ he desperately thought. Couldn’t he see that the cage around his leg was expanding, and shrinking, and that soon enough, Veronica would come to collect her prized possession and carry him off by the handlebar that kept his head glued to the pillow?

“Greg?” Nick managed to wheeze out, because so long as Greg was alive and safe, he’d even willingly go with Veronica, if it meant Greg would  _ remain  _ alive and safe.

“In the next room, they figured you weren’t ready for a roommate,” DB nodded to the other side of the room, Nick rolled his head over, saw Greg Sanders sitting atop his bed, eating a cup of Jell-O, a turban of bandages around his head, and a sleeve of bandages on one arm. 

“Head…?” Nick whispered, because he didn’t remember Greg indicating any sort of head injury during their brief time.

“He’ll be okay, they’re just keeping him overnight for observation. You know, you got a fan club just dying to see you,” DB pressed a gentle hand against Nick’s shoulder, calling his head to snap the other direction. He allowed the blurs outside of the door to clear into a focus. Smiling faces, spiky hair, a sea of Greg Sanders pressing against the window, calling out to him.

_ Dance, puppet, dance.  _

Even if the crowd  _ wasn’t  _ actually Greg Sanders, even if they weren’t cheering as Nick was nothing but a puppet, only alive out of the desire of a twisted psychopath who somehow managed to toy with him even beyond his captivity, her giant hand looming above him, controlling his every movement—h e didn’t even want to see his loved ones, if that’s who they really were--or rather, didn’t want them to see him,  _ not like this. _

“Cah...Can you close the blinds?” Nick gulped out with a hitch in his breath. DB’s smile faded, he nodded somberly before twisting away from the bed and doing what was asked of him. Nick moved his head to face away from the door, and into the next room, where Greg was still sitting on the bed, his own eyes carefully and wordlessly observing Nick. He watched as Greg split into two, then into two again, and again, multiple Gregs, all holding up a shaking hand in a somber wave to his friend. 

“Your parents are here, too.” 

Nick’s heart sank.

Of course they were.

“It’s okay, if you want to be alone, or I can go get them—”

“No! No, you...you can stay,” Nick nodded towards the empty chair beside the bed. “Please,” he quickly added,  _ mind your manners, little Nicky. _

“You know, you, uh, actually asked for me,” DB chuckled. “Thought you maybe had me confused with this Grissom fella I keep hearing about.”

Nick’s lips quivered. He  _ wished  _ Grissom was here.

DB sat down in the chair, held up the piece of paper before attempting to hand it to Nick--but his motor function wasn’t quite restored, and DB opted to just hold it in front of his eyes for him to read.

A resignation letter, signed with his name.

“Did you write this?” DB asked with the same gravity in his voice when interrogating suspects.

Nick shook his head, his breathing spiked up once more.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” 

DB removed the paper from his eyes and ripped it in half, then in half again, and again, until nothing was left but paper confetti that fell to the floor.

“Guess I’m stuck with y’all then, huh?” Nick attempted to laugh, but it felt too painful, and his eyes drifted back to the giant cage wrapped around his leg.

“It’s an external fixator. Supposed to help keep everything in place before they can do surgery on you, they have to drain the infection before they try to repair the damage itself. They explained it to you, and you consented, though judging from the look on your face...you don’t remember that, do you?”

“I don’t remember much of anything,” Nick mumbled, which made him lower his head in shame, sent his heart and brain into an anxious frenzy. Who know what he could have agreed to, maybe even agreed to become Veronica's pet forever.

“Cath warned me you might say that. What  _ is  _ the last thing you remember, Nick? Honestly.”

Nick avoided DB’s eyes, knew he couldn’t feign amnesia as he had before, also paired with the fact that somehow, he had suddenly placed more trust in the man than ever before. 

“Greg dying. Then waking up. Then Veronica...Veronica comin’ to grab him…and t-take him away,” Nick blubbered, he clenched his jaw, tried to stifle his cries. 

“That was  _ us,  _ we got you two out of there,  _ alive,”  _ DB grabbed Nick’s hand, sandwiched between his own, despite the involuntary twitches, the desire to free himself from what  _ should  _ be a comforting gesture. “She can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Did y’all catch her?” Nick asked in a low, raspy whisper. 

DB didn’t respond.


	16. Bear Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg visits Nick and Nick reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY it took so long to update this time, it's been nearly three weeks!

“You know, he keeps asking me about you.” 

Sara’s arms were folded as she leaned against the wall, while Greg changed behind the partition wrapping around the bed. He was dressing as quickly as he could, he wanted to leave the hospital and he wanted to leave it  _ now.  _

He wasn’t a fan of hospitals. Too clinical, too pristine. The sanitized surroundings lured him in with a false sense of security, a charade of comfort as people were coughing, gagging, bleeding, sneezing,  _ dying.  _ He almost felt fragile being around so many broken bones, and broken people. 

He had made frequent trips in his youth, and yet, he never quite fell into familiarity with it all. Every trip embarrassed him more than the last, a circumstance of being an only child with an overprotective mother who would bring him for something as minor as a paper-cut. He instead held the trips with the hospital with the same disdain he had for visiting his school, plagued with memories of teasing and bullying as a result of the bulky headgear and braces. 

And though hospitals and schools gave him plenty of opportunity to make friends, to connect with others who might feel similar to him, he still found it hard to make friends--often being told that he “talked too much,” which made him cringe in acknowledgement of his annoying behavior. 

Which is why, despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to break through the glass wall that separated him and Nick, he bit his tongue, clenched his fist, because the only communication he’d had with the man in the past twenty four hours has been made through silent, apathetic staring contests, which Nick always broke away from first to stare at literally  _ anything else  _ besides Greg.

“Doesn’t seem that much for visitors right now,” Greg remarked. In fact, most of Nick’s visitors had instead filtered their way in through Greg. Outside of DB, Sara, Catherine and Nick’s parents, he hadn’t seen many non-hospital personnel enter Nick’s room. A stark contrast to the previous stays, in which Nick more than welcomed the company. He hated hospitals almost as much as Greg. If Greg had to hazard a guess, he probably hated the pampering.

“I’m sure he’d like to see you, Greg.”

“He’s been able to see me all day and hasn’t even glanced in my direction!” 

“He’s just a little...upset, is all.” 

“Yeah, no kidding,” Greg grunted as he fought to get his shirt over his head.

“It might make him feel a little better. You too, for that matter.”

“Me?” Greg asked with a low chuckle. “I’m fine.” 

“You’re ‘fine?’” 

“Yeah,” Greg shrugged as he drew back the curtain, threw on a half smile. “In fact, I’m happy to finally get outta here. Really, we should go celebrate or something, my treat—”

Greg stuffed his pockets with his belongings and headed towards the door.

“We didn’t catch her, you know.” 

Greg paused with his hand on the door knob, his smile twitched down into a frown. 

“Yeah, Cath told me. Does Nick know?”

He turned to look at Sara, who nodded solemnly. 

“DB told him. I haven’t, uh...haven’t figured out how to break the whole...girlfriend thing to him…”

“He knows already,” Greg gulped with a nod to Nick, though his eyes found more interest in the pattern of tiles on the floor. “I told him, though I think he already had an idea, cause she was...wearing his clothing and just...damn, Sara, I should have seen it sooner.” 

“Hey,” Sara put her hand on his shoulder, met his eyes. “It’s not your fault.” 

“Her and I, we...we got to  _ third base. _ Hell, we almost slid into fourth! And the whole time she was just-just  _ using  _ me—” Greg inhaled sharply, pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “No, this...this is supposed to be a good day, I’m...I don’t want to think about this right now.”

“Good idea,” Sara affirmed. She looked into the room next to theirs, at Nick, who was watching them with an unreadable expression on his face. “But I do think you should at least pop in and say ‘hi’ to Nick before we go.” 

Greg turned his head to look at Nick, who seemed to puff up his chest a little, bit his lower lip before his lips curved up in a sheepish smile, and he beckoned Greg over with a nod.

Greg sighed heavily, and nodded back at the man. 

“Okay,” he breathed, before he walked out of his room and into Nick’s, tossing a look back to Sara as she remained in the hallway.

It shouldn’t have felt like this. He should be happy to see Nick, see him recovering, see him  _ safe.  _

And yet, the hairs on the back of his head stood up, the air flow through his mouth and nostrils got thin as he held his breath. Nick had stiffened as he entered the room, his eyes tracking Greg, unblinking, but as Greg approached his bedside, his lips began to quiver.

_ Why is this so awkward, _ Greg thought to himself, gulping down the dread that anchored his heartstrings. 

“Hey, h-how’re you feeling?” Greg stammered as he rubbed his bandaged arm gently. He shifted his feet side to side, not so inclined to sit, though he wasn’t so inclined to leave, either. 

“Head?” Nick whispered in an uncharacteristically high, hoarse voice. If Greg didn’t know better, he’d think Nick’s tonsils had been removed.

“Bumped it on my way down after the last shock,” Greg shrugged off. He noticed Nick’s eyes were not entirely focused on Greg, at least, not in one spot, darting all over his body, examining him for more injuries Nick hadn’t previously known about.

“Didn’t say nothin’...” Nick grumbled. His eyes drifted down to Greg’s fingers, his eyebrows curved upwards. Greg bit his lower lip, he knew he should have kept his injury from Nick, but to be fair, Nick was sort of in a panic already, having thought Greg was dead.

Greg tentatively reached his fingers out to wrap around Nick’s, but Nick retracted his fingers inward, away from Greg. Out of spite, Greg wrapped his hand around Nick’s fist. 

“Hey, you didn’t answer me,” Greg pried as he worked his fingers as gently, but as firmly as he could between Nick’s knuckles. “How are you feeling?”

The clench of Nick’s fist softened, allowing Greg to awkwardly grasp his hand, a gesture which spiked up Nick’s heart rate, based on the rapid beeping and increasing numbers on the monitor. His lower lip trembled, Greg could hear a low sharp breath seethe through Nick’s teeth as he tried to sit up more, puff out his chest in an effort to make himself seem larger, to build the facade of the lie he was about to speak into existence.

“Feeling okay,” Nick nodded with a shrug, his dark eyes clouded with a mask of drugged fierceness that for the first time, looked directly at Greg. 

“Really?” Greg asked with piqued eyebrows. 

“Not really,” Nick chuckled humorlessly, and his eyes found more interest in the cage around his leg. His tongue poked out, washed over his lips. “Kinda...feel like an animal stuck in a bear trap, you know?”

“Yeah. I know,” Greg sighed. “How long until the surgery?”

“Couple days. They...wanted to clean up the infection before doing anything else.”

Nick continued to stare at the captive leg, and Greg watched as his unfocused eyes burned with frustrated tears, the hand of the slung arm fumbled with the button for the morphine drip that was already half empty. He could see the struggle on the lines of Nick’s face, the pursing of his lips. He’d seen it before, his tell, when he feels like he needs to say something but doesn’t necessarily  _ want  _ to.

Or when he’s about to say something he doesn’t want to admit to himself, either. 

“I-I’m sorry that-that bear trap comment was stu—” Nick’s voice caught itself, he cringed at the abrupt whine and gritted his teeth. When his voice returned, it was a whisper, barely audible under the chirps of the machines. “Stupid.”

“You’re not. That’s not...you’re not being stupid, Nick. You’re hurt,” Greg affirmed, leaned in closer to Nick, tried to meet his eyes but Nick looked the other way, his lips tight and sealed. He knew Nick was already beating himself up about everything that had happened. Over his pain, Greg’s pain. Knowing Nick, he was probably even blaming himself for Veronica’s escape. 

They sat for a few moments, perhaps even minutes without saying another word. Greg felt Nick’s coiled fist stiffen, but he didn’t fight against Greg’s fingers as they continued to work their way around his hand. 

“Sara’s waiting for you,” a broken whisper from Nick, his eyes narrowed under furrowed eyebrows, still avoiding Greg’s gaze.

“Looks like she’s gonna have to wait a bit longer,” Greg shot a glance towards their friend. Her lips curled into her trademark smirk and she nodded, walked away with the silent communication that she would wait as long as she needed to, as would Greg. 

“Hey,” Greg shook Nick’s hand, in an effort to snap Nick out of his self-pity and get him to look Greg in the eye. “I’m not leaving you, you hear me?” 

Nick gulped, a single tear blinked out from his eye and rolled down his bruised cheek. His eyes still averted Greg’s, but suddenly the ball of his fist unfurled, and his fingers wrapped around Greg’s hand entirely, one sweaty palm clammed up against another.

* * *

Visiting hours came and went, and Nick was once again left on his own, which was comforting in the sense that he could drop the mask, the effort that required what was left of his diminished energy could instead be dedicated to  _ resting  _ which is what he should have been doing all along.

What was not comforting was that he really couldn’t get any rest at all. How could he rest knowing that she was still out there? How would he know that one of the nurses walking the halls wasn’t her, making rounds to collect her next victim, or to come into his room and snatch him up, recollecting her favorite toy.

He still felt as if he had shrunk, and the immobility of his body didn’t help matters. People loomed over him like skyscrapers, he may as well have been sprawled out on the layout table, or underneath a microscope for all to see, tied down with pins and strings connecting one injury to another in the same way that his arm had been restrained in a sling, his leg pinned to the bed. And yet, in their examination of him, they approached him with caution. Prodded him with caution. Spoke to him with caution. It was as frustrating as it was awkward. 

He couldn’t blame their awkwardness, it had been nearly two weeks since he had seen any of them, and even longer in his parents’ case. The only person he felt remotely comfortable with the idea of talking with was Greg, and he had tried multiple times to kick the man out of his room until he was actually forced out by the nurse informing them that visiting hours were over. 

Even with his attempts to get Greg to leave him, he didn’t necessarily want him to  _ leave,  _ just...go somewhere else. Go back to the other side of the glass, where he could still enjoy himself, have his own life, but Nick could still keep an eye on him. Because how could he know that Greg was safe outside of the hospital? How could he know Veronica wouldn’t find him again, and finish the job, or use him once again to bait Nick into obedience? 

It was a selfish train of thought, that Greg was used by Veronica only to get to Nick, but even Nick couldn’t deny a bit of internalized jealousy that perhaps she really did just want to fuck around with Greg for her own demented pleasure, that he was just as much targeted for Veronica’s desires as much as Nick was.

A thought that sickened him more than the infection that gave him one of the most intense fevers of his life, especially as that particular train of thought begged the question, was he jealous of the attention that Greg had gotten from her? Was he jealous that there was someone else destined for his particular brand of suffering, and in a vain sense he felt that they couldn’t handle it? 

It was something that crossed his mind more than once, truthfully. Nobody else could have handled all of his gunpoint incidents. Nobody else could have survived that fall from the window. Nobody else could have continued working their job after being stalked, and beyond that, working with the same people who watched videos of him  _ sleeping  _ as part of the evidence logging process. Nobody else could have played dead and shot down a serial killer after getting shot themselves.

Nobody else could have survived being buried alive for damn near a day, with ants literally sprinkled on top. 

And  _ nobody  _ could have survived the stuff Veronica put him through, surely.

They wouldn’t have made it past the bird cage. 

Greg was the closest, he thought, and he was honestly surprised that he was so seemingly...composed about it all. Granted, he could have been putting on his own mask, his own charade to Nick in the guise that he was okay when he was so obviously not. 

It was a game Nick was already a master of, and Greg was a fast learner. 

“Lights out, Mr. Stokes, anything you need?” 

A nurse was at his bedside, staring down at him with an unreadable expression and his body flew into a panic as she seemingly had come out of left field, startled him out of his train of thought. He had to blink a few times, the woman’s hair was as long as Veronica’s, but the scar across her neck was missing, the color of her eyes was different. 

“Hey, you okay? You look a little pale, is the temperature in the room suitable?”

The nurse put a hand to his forehead, his tongue nervously stuck out from his lips, before he swallowed it back into his mouth. His eyes flickered to her name tag, the badge read "Proot." 

“Yeah, ‘m fine, ma’am,” he croaked. “Just...a bit tired, s’all.” 

The nurse’s eyes narrowed, but he appreciated that she didn’t try to pry any further. 

That is, until, she read his chart and her eyes flickered back at him, he watched in apprehension as she lifted a hand, reached towards him— _ oh no,  _ he thought, she was going to take him away, or worse, back to Veronica—but instead, other other hand replaced the chart, and she used both hands to readjust the pillow behind him. 

“How’s that head of yours doing?” 

“What?” Nick blinked.

“You’ve been through hell, it looks like. Can’t imagine everything is sunshine and rainbows up there.”

Nick cracked a smile, ducked his head away from the woman.

“Yeah, not quite. Been through worse, though.” 

“Have you, though?” 

Nick looked up, and the woman was gone.


	17. Nap Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Greg are not having a good day, to say the least. Perhaps both of them need a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, well, well, would you look at that? we finally have a (tentative?) chapter count. buckle up everyone, these next thirteen(?) chapters are going to be a wildly emotional ride.

“Veronica says it’s nap time for you, my little Nicky.”

If there was an opportunity to escape, this was it, and he couldn’t take the chance. An ex-lab rat stuck on a glue trap.

“N-no, p-please, I’ll...I’ll be good!” Nick cried out. “I’ll d-do anything you want, please, just--”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Veronica reprimanded. She bent down, her back to Greg as she lifted Nick’s chin with her hand. “Nicky, Nicky, _ Nicky, _ it’s far too late for that. You just want all the attention for yourself now, don’t you? So inconsiderate.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Nick gulped, his eyes darting between Greg and Veronica. Greg’s skin was glued to the floor, his body a heavy stone that he couldn’t lift, exhausted from the “playtime,” he couldn’t run even if he wanted to. 

Even more than that, he couldn’t leave Nick. Not here. Not like this. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t have to,” she patted Nick’s cheek for emphasis as she brought a needle from behind her back to his neck in a swift motion that seemed to lag in Greg’s vision. “Because you already have.” 

Nick hardly put up a fight, rather, he broke into a fit of cries as Greg watched Veronica’s fingers push down on the syringe. He did raise one shaking hand in futile effort to claw at the disturbance, but Veronica simply swatted it away before slapping him across the face. Greg’s heart sank as Nick’s body went limp, and he stopped fighting altogether, tearful, hazy eyes giving one last look to Greg before they rolled in the back of his head. 

“Poor thing, he’s not had this much action in a while now. As for you, Greg,” Veronica mused, she stood up and turned her attention to Greg, prodding his shoulder with her foot. “Are you ready to begin?” 

Greg felt the bile rise up in this throat as her lips curled into a menacing smile, her laughter echoing in his ears as he shut his eyes, praying that he could somehow teleport somewhere else—

“Mr. Stokes? Are you ready?”

Greg opened his eyes and he was back in the hospital, his warm, clothed skin glued to a chair instead of ice cold skin glued to wet cement. But the situation was eerily similar, though different enough that Greg’s stomach had settled, if only a small amount. Nick was over-exhausted, tearful, trembling as a woman stood above him with a small cup of pills and a cup of water, coaxing him into a slumber before his surgery.

Nick’s mother was present, too, standing next to the nurse and holding one of Nick’s hands, despite his attempt to twist away and face Greg instead, but movement was hard between all the tubes hooked into his body, and external fixator around his leg. Being spread apart, vulnerable in such a way could not have been easy for Nick, and while the man certainly had endurance that Greg sometimes thought surpassed normal human condition, even Nick Stokes had his limits... 

“It’s nap time, sweetie,” Jillian soothed, petting her son’s hair.

...and triggers, too. 

Greg flinched at the words, knowing that Jillian had no idea of the previous use towards her son. Nick claimed he didn’t either, for that matter, but there was a look in his eyes, bogged down with the heavy weight of shadows that told Greg that Veronica’s idea of “nap time” was a semi-regular occurrence, he had to remember falling into at least one of them.

“Nooooo,” Nick moaned softly, his body squirmed, his head flipped away from his mother’s hand. “Please, no, I’ll b-be good…”

“This is just to help you calm your nerves, Mr. Stokes,” the nurse tried to comfort him, but Nick pursed his lips tight, shook his head, with the same defiance he held in eating. Greg cupped his hand over Nick’s fist that had coiled itself around the sheets, caressed Nick’s thumb with his own.

“The poor thing really had it bad, huh?” the nurse whispered to Jillian.

“He’s not a _ thing,” _Greg spat, his desire to sit with Nick as long as he could overtaking the burning will to stand up and set loose on this woman objectifying Nick. 

He supposed she had to, though, to do her job. In a way, they had to do the same with victims in their investigations. A certain level of disconnect was needed to remove the human element in order to examine the victim for what they were, absent of life. Not to be mistaken for complete apathy of course. There were many cases where the victim was still alive, yet still needed that clinical method of examination, otherwise nothing would get done. 

But damn if it didn’t hurt being on that side of the scope.

Greg sighed and looked at Nick, who was staring directly ahead at the space in front of him, seemingly lost in his head. Greg couldn’t tell whether he heard the exchange or not, but was hopeful for the latter.

“Hey, baby, this...this is gonna help,” Greg told him. His ears burned at the affectionate pet name, hoping Nick’s mother didn’t pay attention, wasn’t sure as to how much she knew about their on and off relationship, and decided to divert his attention instead to Nick’s face. He studied the darkness under Nick’s eyes, wondered if he had even slept since Greg left the hospital a few days ago. Watched his lips tremble, muttering soft words that were unintelligible. His breathing mirrored the flaring of his nostrils, sucking up the mucous that clogged his airways.

“Help’s not comin,” three words that Greg was able to hear, and broke his heart. In his sleep deprived state of mind, he wondered if Nick thought he was still back in the shelter. 

“It is, it’s here, we’re here—_ I’m _here. And they’re going to help you, okay?” Greg whispered, gripping Nick’s hand tighter. He moved his other hand to Nick’s face, the palm of his hand cupping Nick’s cheek. 

“They just want to fix that leg of yours, so you can get out of here. So you can go _ home.” _

“_She’s _ at home. She’s at _ my _ home..._her _home...” 

“No, she’s-she’s not, Nick. We got people sitting on _your_ house.”

“They’re gonna fall in.”

“What?”

“Sittin’ on my house, they’re gonna fall in.” 

Greg laughed beneath his breath, but snatched it before it fully left his mouth, because the look on Nick’s face was a serious one. His thumb stroked Nick’s cheek, swiped away a tear that had broken through and rolled down his cheek.

“They don’t want you to feel it, cause it’s gonna _ hurt,” _Greg emphasized. 

“It already hurts,” Nick sniffled, and the cage around his leg rattled in the movement as the rest of his body writhed around it. He wrapped a hand around Greg’s bandaged arm, and his own pain flared up instantly. Greg clenched his teeth, but still tried to comfort his friend.

“It will make you feel better. It’ll make you feel like _ yourself _again. And I’ll be here, right here, when you wake up.” 

“Y-yeah?”

“Yes.”

Greg looked up at the nurse, gesturing for the medicine. She gave him a stern, but defeated look and allowed him to take the cup of pills and hand it to Nick. 

“I promise.”

Nick’s eyes flickered between the pills and Greg for a few moments, contemplative, before he gave a stiff nod and opened his mouth. 

Greg continued to stroke Nick’s face, hold his hand as Nick’s body relaxed. After some time, his blinks were getting slower, longer, but each time they opened again, they were wide, frantic. Greg’s heart sank as he realized Nick was fighting the drug’s effects, and the struggle came to a boiling point as Nick had nearly fallen asleep.

“I don’t-don’t wanna go…” Nick wailed as he tightened his hold on Greg, his fingers digging into Greg’s already damaged skin, it took all Greg had to not just scream for him to stop. “Don’t leave me, please, don’t...don’t leave me…”

“I’m not...leaving you…” Greg grunted, tried to pry Nick’s hand off of his arm. Jillian saw the pain in Greg’s face, tried to wrestle Nick’s other arm back as Nick twisted, an attempt to cling on to Greg, but Nick shrugged her off, pushed her away. 

“She’ll...come back, s-she’ll h-hurt me—” he was muttering, hyperventilating, lost somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of his mind. Greg moved his hand behind Nick’s head to steady it as he began to shake it back and forth.

“Nobody is going to hurt you—”

“I’m hers, I’m her toy—”

“Nick, hey—_ Nick!” _ Greg shouted firmly over Nick’s whines and cries, shook both his hand and the back of his head to snap him out of himself. “Please, just….just go to sleep. It’s okay! It’s _ okay.” _

The shouting was enough to startle Nick, though it made him produce more pronounced tears that streaked from his tired eyes, but it worked, and his body began to relax again—_he _began to relax, gave Greg one final look through hazy, tearful eyes as his blinking once again slowed, this time, to a complete halt, and he fell silent, and his body went limp, his fingers falling off of Greg’s shoulder and off the side of the bed.

Greg caught his breath as he gently placed Nick’s hand on the bed, and tucked the blanket into his sides. He avoided meeting his mother’s eyes, and instead looked past the bed, out into the hall where the nurse had paused in her patrol in the halls to observe the now sleeping patient, gave Greg a nod. 

It was a few minutes before anybody spoke, and the silence was not quite a comfortable one. 

“What did she do to you boys?” Jillian gasped, tears in her eyes before she ran out of the room.

* * *

DB wasn’t surprised to see that the entire team had congregated in the hospital waiting room alongside his parents, despite their lack of rest after a grueling shift drenched in anxiety, even though the surgery on Nick’s leg was very low risk. 

They certainly seemed surprised to see him, however, especially as he walked in holding his wife’s hand.

“Barbara, this is...my work family. Team, this is Barbara, my wife,” DB introduced as he gestured around the team.

Judge Stokes had remained seated, offered a curt nod to the Russells while Nick’s mother was the first to rise and offer her hand.

“Jillian, I’m Nick’s mother,” Jillian introduced herself. Catherine was not far behind, extending her hand as well.

“Nice to meet you, I’m so sorry to hear about your son,” Barbara offered back, and DB felt his wife’s hand part from his own as the trio of mothers moved to a spot to sit and talk.

DB met eyes with the judge, who did not seem much for company at the moment, his hands gripping the bars of his chair so tightly his knuckles seemed ready to explode. 

Instead he moved towards Morgan, Sara and Greg, all scattered in a small section of chairs, all staring at nothing in particular, looking as if they needed guidance.

He sat next to Greg first, the only one he hadn’t seen in the halls of the Crime Lab in the past eight hours. He was supposed to be home, resting, but his face screamed to DB that he had anything but, his legs nervously bouncing and fingers netted into each other.

“How’re you holding up?” DB asked as he sat down in the chair next to Greg.

“Man, he was just..._ so tired. _Haven’t seen him like this in...a while...” Greg muttered.

“I wasn’t asking about Nick, I was asking about you,” DB pointed out.

“Fine,” Greg scrunched his face and shook his head, turned his head away, to the other side of the room.

“How’s the arm?” 

“‘S fine.”

“Not going to be throwing a football any time soon, huh?” DB chuckled, trying to coax some reaction out of Greg. He was suddenly reminded of similar one sided conversations with his son, offering up references to activities that would normally interest him.

But Greg wasn’t his son. Neither was Nick, for that matter. Sara and Morgan weren’t his daughters. Catherine wasn’t his “work wife” or otherwise, perhaps a sister. He had no connection to this team, not this soon, not yet. 

And despite that, Greg did finally turn his head to DB his words stinging in snark, but his eyes calling out for more, calling out for that fatherly comfort that DB was more than happy to offer, though was hesitant, didn’t want to come off as too eager. 

“Football’s not really my thing. It’s Nick’s.” 

“Hey. He’ll be okay,” DB reminded him. Greg nodded, then ducked his head into his hands. 

“Yeah, yeah, he will. Eventually. Maybe,” Greg kneaded his knuckles over his eyes, his back arched stiffly. As DB placed a hand on his back to comfort him, he could feel the air trapped inside.

“And you’ll be okay, too,” DB told him, but the tension in Greg’s body didn’t release. “You wanna get some coffee? Talk about it a bit?”

“Is this the part where we talk about what happened in the shelter?” Greg asked numbly. 

“We don’t have to do that now, or ev—”

“Fuck it, let’s go. Let’s talk about it, right here, right now,” Greg snapped, standing up and waving for DB to follow him to the cafeteria. “Got nothing better to do anyway!”

DB watched as Greg stormed off, gave a look to Sara, who met his eyes with a sympathetic frown. He didn’t know Greg well enough yet to know if this bitterness was uncharacteristic or just a symptom of his own exhaustion. He supposed that the younger man may have just needed a nap, and that eventually, he would be able to calmly, collectively talk it out with DB.

Nevertheless, he sighed and followed the man, an unspoken delegation between them as DB obtained the coffee, and Greg obtained the most secluded, private place to sit that they could find.

“Didn’t know how you take it—” 

“It’s fine,” Greg cut him off, pulling the cup towards him, but neglected it as he lurched forward, propping himself up with one hand to his forehead. They sat in silence for a few moments, before DB made an attempt to speak again. 

“So, uh, where do you want to—”

“You want to know how I got this slice on my arm?” Greg looked up, moved his hand to the coffee cup, wrapped his fingers around it. “I know everybody wants to, but they’re all afraid to ask.”

DB closed his mouth, stared directly at Greg to indicate to him that he was listening, but Greg ducked his head down at the table, shaking his head.

By DB’s internal clock, it was two minutes before Greg spoke again.

“She dragged my ass into that dungeon, knocked me down, humiliated me, strapped a fuckin’ collar on me—and not the fun kind—made me crawl, stripped me down, sprayed me with a hose, a-and then...the shocks...and the staples and what-what I had to...do to...Nick...”

He gulped, fell silent as he drew the curtain of his eyelids over his glossy eyes, receded back into a shell of himself. His fingernails dug into the cup, DB’s ears perked up at the unsettling squeak of the styrofoam.

“But that wasn’t the worst of it, the worst of it was...she made...Nick do it. Made Nick...do..._ so many things _ to me—And he doesn’t even _ remember _—”

Greg’s hand gripped the cup so tight that the styrofoam crumbled in his grasp, and the liquid popped out of the cup, onto his hand, steam sizzled as Greg suppressed his scream with a clenched jaw and tightly shut eyes.

“God!—Dammit!” Greg cursed loudly, he slammed his other hand on the table. Furious tears hidden by a hand that quickly wiped them away as DB shielded him from the curious onlookers at the sudden disruption. He held a hand up to indicate to the crowd that he was handling the situation, an emotional bomb defused. 

It took another few minutes, and even more collected breaths before Greg dropped yet another bomb, one that wouldn’t be so easily taken care of, the shock waves would ripple for months, or even years, DB supposed, to come.

“The slice on my arm? It was...It was Nick’s fault.”


	18. Ship in a Bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick falls into yet another waking nightmare, full of reflection, and is pulled out unexpectedly by a woman from his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little over a month later and I'm back with this monster of a chapter with all the horrific imagery and emotions you've come to expect from this beast of a fic. Got a little meta with this one, introducing my very first OC I ever made for CSI fic back into my CSI fic universe, although her role will be much different in the other fics I'll be writing her in. 
> 
> Mention of rape in this one, and come the next chapter, I'll be throwing up some additional warnings and tags.

He used to like making toys, specifically tanks and airplanes. It was a hobby that had lost a little bit of its appeal after a serial killer made models of her crime scenes and he began to have nightmares about being trapped inside of one, which only worsened with Sara’s abduction, but the origins of his hobby could be traced back to his father. 

His father had taken a liking to constructing model ships inside of glass bottles, an activity that required a lot of intricacy and patience. He would often pour a glass of whiskey as he worked on them in the confines of his office, the only time his door was ever closed to the Stokes children. He would display them among the bookcases that were much too high for a young Nick to reach, but that didn’t stop Nick from luring his father into a generous mood so that perhaps, he could bring it down for him.

_ “But...Cisco, I wanna play with it!” _

_ “I’m sorry, Pancho, but this isn’t a toy.” _

He was always very particular about that, knowing how Nick’s young, mischievous boy mind worked. He knew that Nick, while he certainly wouldn’t mean to, would most definitely break the bottle if he was allowed to “play” with it. 

All Nick really wanted to do was look at it, examine it. There’s not much else to do with such an object. He couldn’t take the ship outside of the bottle, it was an impossible task. Instead, he would use his imagination to pretend that _ he _was on the ship, sailing through endless ocean waters on an adventure. 

One day, while his father was roaming the halls of the large ranch house, Nick had found his opportunity to use the step stool his mother kept in the kitchen to reach one of the bottles. At first, he just stood on the stool, admiring it. Imagining a miniaturized version of himself at the helm, climbing the mast, running around the deck and shouting imaginary orders at imaginary crews men--of which he whisper-shouted, so as to not attract attention to what he _ knew _he shouldn’t have been doing, but was doing anyway.

But...oh, no! A storm was coming, and Captain Pancho needed to act quick. The ship was rocking, tossed between the waves of a child’s fingers as Nick had semi-consciously picked up the bottle, and the bottle was lifted from its stand on the shelf, gently through the imaginary waves as imaginary thunder _ roared _in Nick’s ears--

And then, a flash of lightning brought him out of his fantasy and back into reality, as his father startled him from behind with words that were louder than thunder, shook Nick’s entire body--he vaguely wondered if this is what it felt like to be electrocuted, a warning that he never seemed to heed from his mother when he would continue to play outside during thunderstorms--his fingers flexed, his grip was lost on the bottle and suddenly the ship sank through the air, down to the ocean floor which was Cisco’s desk behind him, and it clashed against an empty glass tumbler.

_ “Nicholas Parker Stokes!” _ Cisco--No, he wasn’t the soft, gentle Cisco. This was his Father, the judge, stern and sharp, and yet Nick also recognized, was fair. He swiftly walked over and picked Nick up off of the stool, placed him a few feet away from the broken glass. He knew he shouldn’t have been in this room on his own, and _ definitely _knew he shouldn’t have been playing with his father’s creations. 

“Go to your room,” his father ordered. 

“I-I’m s-sorry, C-cisco--!” Nick wailed, his ears burning as hot as the water pouring from his eyes. He reached for a piece of glass, perhaps he could help clean up the mess he made--

_ “Go to your room!” _his father raised his voice, sharp words that once again, startled Nick. Nick jumped and spun away, nearly tripping as he scampered past the door frame. He sniffled as he quickly gathered himself and ran to his room, out of fear that his father would chase him down and do worse than just yell. He caught a glimpse of his mother on his way past the office, through the kitchen and upstairs to the bedrooms. Her smile was gone, and replaced with a tight frown, her warm eyes gave him an icy stare. 

She knew he was in trouble, but gave him no sympathy.

He quickly shut the door behind him, and the large house was eerily silent, and the silence was more unnerving than ever. He curled himself up in his bed, under the covers, sobbing quietly because this was the first time he had ever seen this side of his father--well, not quite, he had seen glimpses of it before, but never directed _ at him. _

His imagination began to spin a web of the future in front of him, in which his father would make him stay in his room forever. 

A future in which he would no longer be allowed to sit and watch “The Cisco Kid” with his father, and his nickname would be revoked. He would just go back to being _ Nicholas Parker, _in full, because he can never stay out of trouble. 

He could hear a future with his mother chastising him, telling him to go sleep outside with dogs and eat from the floor, because if he wasn’t going to behave like a good boy, he wouldn’t be treated like one. 

He could hear his siblings’ laughter, because finally, little Nicky was no longer the “precious baby” of the family who couldn’t do anything wrong. He finally got in trouble. His first ever time-out--well, as far as he could remember. Sure, he had gotten his hand swatted away by his mother as he tried to sneak a cookie before supper, or his butt swiftly popped by his father as he threw a tantrum because they were leaving the park and he _ didn’t want to leave yet!, _but those instances were as forgettable to him as they were to his parents, who would act as if nothing had happened. 

And as his mind unraveled more and more of the web, he envisioned the worst case scenario, in which his father would put _ him _in a bottle, put him on the highest shelf, where nobody could ever reach him. He struggled in the small space, finding that he couldn’t seem to breathe like when he was outside, tried to push the cork off of the bottle but he was too weak, and his struggles intensified as his body, in real life, began to flail in the blanket on his bed. He felt a sudden urge to scream, call for Mommy or Cisco for help, but he didn’t dare, because he knew they wouldn’t come. 

He shut his eyes, stuffed the blanket in his mouth to hide the sound of his crying. _ Big boys don’t cry, Pancho. _

And he was bigger than this. 

“He’s only five, Roger.” 

His mother’s soft, whispering voice had called to him through his entanglement in the web, and he wasn’t in the bottle anymore, though he was still staring at a colorless void. Perhaps he had fallen asleep, but the Sandman glued his eyes too tight, and he couldn’t seem to open them.

So he did the only thing he could do, the one thing he found he was better at than the rest of his siblings, when it came to his parents.

He listened. 

“I know, I know,” A pause, he could imagine his father sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose, as he often did when his boys did something stupid. He heard a soft chuckle. “My father would’ve given me the belt.” 

Nick trembled to think about what would have been done to him with a belt, he had heard the snap of it once before, when his father used the threatening sound to get his son down off of jumping on his bed. 

“My mother always used a wooden spoon,” his mother mused. Nick’s eyebrows knitted in confusion, what use would a spoon do? Did his grandmother shove so much food into his mother’s mouth that she couldn’t swallow or breathe? “We knew this day would come.”

“Just didn’t think it would be this soon. He was a good kid.” 

Oh no. This was it. This was the end. They were going to punish him, although his father’s last words made Nick imagine they were going to get rid of him entirely. Give him to the orphanage that his friend from daycare, Billy, came from. 

“I’ll go talk to him.”

Nick’s heart soared and sank as the door to his room squeaked open, and he heard his father clear his throat. 

“Nicholas,” his father began, and while Nick remained motionless in fear, acting as if he were still asleep, he could feel his ears perk up, his teeth bit down on the inside of his lips.

He felt the bed beneath him sink, the blanket was teased away from his body, but Nick tightened his grip around it. If they wanted to take him away from the sanctuary of his room, the one place he felt safe, he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Nick, buddy…” his father coaxed him in a softer voice, and Nick’s chin wobbled though he still held firm, he raised his hand, ready to either push his father away, off of his bed, or roll over so that his father couldn’t see him, or both. But in the movement, he loosened his left fist, and the movement opened the cut he was trying to contain in his bloodied fingers. 

“Oh, Nicky,” his father gasped as he noticed Nick’s secret, and he unfurled Nick’s hand to expose the small cut he had obtained from his attempt to help clean up the glass. 

“I-I’m sowwy,” Nick blubbered as he couldn’t keep up the fight, the stinging in his hands was too much for him to keep the floodgates from opening.

“I know you are. Let’s go get you cleaned up,” Nick reached out as Cisco lifted him from the bed, carried him out of the room. “Now, see, this is why I didn’t want you to play with the bottles. I didn’t want you to get hurt, okay?” 

“Okay, Daddy,” Nick hiccuped. 

“Oh, Pancho…” Cisco cupped his hand behind Nick’s head, pulled him against his chest. “Buck up, now, it’s just a small cut. It’ll heal in no time.” 

“He’ll be back on his feet in no time,” an unfamiliar voice warbled. 

He was no longer wrapped in the arms of his father, his limbs stretched out, he felt his body bubble and tighten. There was an odd numbness to his left leg, almost a void, as if it wasn’t there. Maybe they couldn’t fix the bone, and cut it off entirely. 

“Thanks, Doctor,” a woman’s voice, familiar, motherly but not his mother’s. Catherine. 

Silence. His eardrums echoed as his teeth clenched, as he willed himself to push through the void of unconsciousness. The Sandman’s dust sealing his eyelids had turned to cement in the past thirty-five years. His tongue tried to push through his teeth, through his lips but his mouth remained shut. The bones in his body all jostled, but his muscles wouldn’t move. His adult mind recognized the sensation of sleep paralysis, or else this was just a window opened through a drug-induced sleep. He had stared out that window before, countless times in other hospital stays. 

And just like those times, he was trapped in his body, figuratively slamming his palms against the window as everyone else continued to live outside. 

Without him. 

There were low murmurs, unintelligible arrangements of who would take the first “watch,” a practice that had developed in the team throughout their various hospital stays.

DB had taken the first watch, remained mostly silent save for a few phone calls to his family. 

“Hey, Nick, listen, uh…” DB addressed him near the end of his watch. Nick wanted to turn his head, because he could sense that DB was seated behind him. “Just...hang in there, buddy, alright? You get better so you can come back, and do what you do best.”

He was as encouraging as his mother used to be, in the times where Nick thought of giving up. Truth be told, the thought of returning to work hadn’t really crossed his mind in the hysteria of his so-called “recovery.” Could he go back? Would he go back? 

If anything, he felt more broken than ever after his surgery. The precise tools of operation were used to pick up the broken pieces that Veronica had shattered, and reassemble him inside of a bottle.

He wasn’t a person, after all. He was an object, to be admired. A toy to be played with, but only by Veronica. Nobody else.

“Yeah, Linds, he’s okay. He’s safe…” Catherine’s voice, speaking to his “adopted” niece on the phone. Suddenly he can’t remember how old Lindsey is, he always has to ask. “No, sorry, sweetie, he’s not awake…”

_ Sorry, sweetie, you can’t play with that toy. _

“I’ll tell him when he wakes up...Love you, too.” 

A sigh, and Nick envisioned how Catherine must be sitting, one leg crossed over the other, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Exhausted, but only showing it in private. Like his father.

“Oh, Nicky. Why does this keep happening?” her voice is slightly shaky, she’s losing the control that she so desperately clings onto in times of stress. She was always good with that, keeping things under control. Keeping _ him _under control. “When it rains, it pours on us. Always has...and honestly...I don’t know how much longer I can keep weathering this storm.”

What the hell did _ that _mean? His mouth was finally starting to part, his mind rushed to transmit the words to his vocal chords, when her voice disappeared, and another replaced it.

“I should have left with you that night at the bar. Nothing really happened after you left, anyway. Some guy tried to hit on me and I left. But...maybe if I had stayed...I could have followed you, or f-found you in that alley…” Morgan’s voice, lined with guilt. “I should have left quicker...should have left the garage quicker…”

Garage? Did she mean the lab’s garage? He remembered how Greg told him he was taken right out of the lab and into the toy box. 

“I just...sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up with you guys.”

He wanted to reassure her that she was doing great, and not just because she was Ecklie’s daughter. If anything...he couldn’t keep up with her youthful, fresh energy. 

He suddenly felt ancient.

Sara was next in the line of the pseudo-confessionals that had been spoken over his sleeping body, announced only by her brief exchange with Morgan.

She gave Nick a break of much needed silence. And yet, in her silence, she seemed to offer the most comfort of all, and he felt himself relax for the first time since he “woke up.” He foolishly thought that perhaps, he was slowly descending back into an actual slumber. That he would wake up and would no longer be Veronica’s prized possession in a bottle, but Nick Stokes, recovering from yet another in a long history of nightmares. That maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that his leg would heal and things could go back to normal. 

But that chance was slim, with Veronica still out there, free as a bird to just swoop Nick back in her talons whenever she desired. 

The thought disturbed him so much he thought he might have actually woken up, his eyes had opened, and while Sara was not next to him, Greg was. 

Greg was always right beside him, just like he promised he would be. 

His lips curled into a smile, his mouth gaped open as he was about to say something to snap Greg out of his pouting, because he seemed really...sad. 

“I told DB what you did. That was so...stupid. I shouldn’t have.”

Did? What did he do?

Nick’s heart sank as he further studied Greg’s expression, remorseful, full of hurt. He was rubbing his arm as he spoke, and _ oh. _

That.

“Especially since...since you didn’t even remember, you thought it was Veronica a-and I guess in a way it was...but…”

Nick’s heart pounded at Greg’s spoken words, the fault of his lie tainting the inflections in Greg’s words. He remembered everything, including..._ that. _

“I know that...that _ you _didn’t mean it. But the...you that was there, in that moment...would have done anything, I think, just to get Veronica to stop. And, and I get that, I do, but...we could have done something different. Maybe could have escaped.”

He paused, and Nick wanted to lift a hand, reach out to his friend. He was surprised when his hand did, in fact lift, but even more so when it slammed against a glass surface. 

A glass surface that wasn’t cornered, didn’t have sides, but was curved. An infinite prison.

A bottle.

It was at that moment that he realized how _ big _Greg was, and how small Nick was, himself, useless to comfort his partner in his time of need.

“My, my, little Nicky, what do we have here?” A booming echo cut through the silence, and he looked up as a large shadow threw itself over the bottle. 

He was sleeping. Just sleeping. This was just a dream. He was going to wake up. 

Nick couldn’t do anything, Veronica’s slender fingers were wrapping around the bottle, lifting him in the air, up to her face. She examined him, with a plastered smile but more haunting eyes that masked some sort of hidden, lustful, _ dangerous _desire beneath them, all the while, Greg seemed unaware of the situation, lost in his own thoughts. Greg couldn’t help anyway, he was in his own bottle.

“Here, Nicky, you can play with this one.” 

The bottle moved from her piercing eyes to a small boy, who looked just like him, eyes wide in awe as his small, childishly pudgy fingerprints smeared on the glass, poking at different parts of Nick’s body. 

“Whoa, look at it! It’s got a broken leg. Do you think we can fix it?” 

But the boy wasn’t speaking to Veronica, instead speaking to Greg, who finally spoke again as the boy placed the bottle back onto the bed. 

“We can fix this, I know we can,” Greg nodded, and he finally turned his head to look at Nick. “You’re awake.”

Nick’s eyes may have been open, but he was not necessarily awake. Not entirely.

“Or...not?” Greg muttered, familiar with Nick’s habit of sleep paralysis. He gulped, wiped a hand over his weary face. “I need you, Nick, please, just...just say something.” 

“Sir, visiting hours are over,” a new voice burst into the room, impatiently waving her hand, to beckon Greg up and out, away from Nick, not giving a damn at how much progress Nick was making on his way out of a waking nightmare.

“Can we just...have another minute?” Greg pleaded. He turned back towards Nick, squeezed Nick’s hand. “I wish you were...here.”

“Yes, Greg! I’m right here! I’m right here!” he shouted, but Greg didn’t seem to hear him, still examined him with the same puzzlement that laced the tone of his voice. Still paralyzed, but his eyes were open. 

“I’m sorry. I’ll be back in the morning, first thing. I promise.”

_ Just like you promised before? _

“Sir,” the nurse beckoned him with more sharpness in her voice, and he shook his head as he got up from the chair, and headed towards the door.

“Don’t...leave...me…” Nick drawled out in a low voice, barely audible even if Greg would hear him.

Greg exited the room, and the lights were turned off, and somehow, so was Nick’s brain. 

* * *

_ “The taste of love is sweet…” _

Staples in his leg. 

A lock on his cage, the key attached to Veronica’s hip. 

It was his only option. 

_ “When hearts like ours meet…” _

His body was heavy, each individual bone in his hand as heavy as stone, but he somehow maneuvered his fingers towards the small bent pieces of metal in his leg. Pieces he could refashion into a makeshift lock pick...

_ “I fell for you like a child…” _

He tried it before, but it didn’t work. 

But maybe this time was different, and it would.

_ “Ohhhhh...but the fire went wild _,” he sang beneath his breath, as he began to pull...

“Hey! Stop that!” 

The lights turned on, and he wasn’t in the bird cage. Wasn’t in his cell with a collar around his neck. Wasn’t a doll trapped in a dollhouse. Wasn’t in a bottle, he was back in the hospital, and with the lights brought back a level of clarity in the harsh truth of reality that he hadn’t had since he was at the bar with Morgan.

“I was just…” his voice trailed, but he couldn’t think of an excuse to make anyway. How would he explain to the uniformed woman that burst into his room why he was picking at the surgical staples that were piecing together his broken leg? 

“Well, now, we got a few options here, sweetie,” the nurse huffed with her hands on her hips. Nick disliked the condescending tone she seemed to take with him, as if the damage to his leg was _ his _fault. 

Then again, he supposed, he wasn’t making it exactly easy to deal with. 

“We could have a camera installed--”

“No,” Nick responded harshly. 

“Then we’d have to restrain you--”

“I’d really, _ really _rather not…” 

“Guess the only other thing would be...Naomi!” the nurse called out to a passing woman in the hallway. 

“Yeah?” 

Nick recognized the nurse, her first name now identified as Naomi, as the one from earlier, he remembered her surname, “Proot” on the name tag from her appearance the other night. 

“Got a babysitting job for you. If you leave the room, restrain him.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Naomi nodded, her face was expressionless but her eyes seemed to flash some sort of emotion Nick couldn’t discern as her eyes darted away from him. 

Naomi remained in the door frame until the other nurse was out the door and down the hall, before she closed the door behind her and walked towards Nick’s bed. 

“Boy, she’s a bit blunt, isn’t she?” Nick chuckled to try and diffuse the one-sided sensation of tension, as Naomi pulled up a chair next to Nick’s bed. 

“Tough love is just kind of her thing, I guess,” Naomi shrugged. “What’s your name again?”

“Chart’s right there,” Nick teased, but also hoped it would get Naomi away from him, if only for a moment. She seemed a little _ too _eager to be in charge of watching Nick, as he finally figured out what was in her eyes when she entered the room, supplemented by the limited space she put between the chair and his bed. 

Everyone else had kept him at least at arm’s length, knowing and understanding his claustrophobia.

“I know. But, if I’m gonna be in here with you for...well she didn’t really say, did she? Rest of the night, I guess?” 

_ It’s still nighttime? Did I even sleep at all? _

His eyes flickered to the clock, it was half past midnight.

“What, until my mom comes home?” Nick scoffed sarcastically, though he quickly swallowed his tongue in nervousness.

“Name’s Nick,” he muttered, after a brief silence.

“I’m Naomi...but you knew that already.” 

Nick stared at her blankly, as she cocked her head to the side, her eyes sweeping up and down his body. He shifted uncomfortably, pulled his blanket up to his chest though it was concealed behind a hospital gown. 

“You wanna watch any television?”

“Got a feeling I’m gonna get enough of it at home when I’m under house arrest,” Nick quipped, which got the beginnings of a smile out of the woman. “Look, uh, I might just...try to go back to sleep. Then maybe you can go back to doing something more important than watchin’ over me.”

“Orders are orders. Besides, the bags under your eyes tell me sleep hasn’t been coming naturally for you."

“You’re quite observant, there.”

“Kinda have to be for this job. People lie all the time, so you have to trust your eyes instead.”

_ Trust the evidence, _Grissom’s voice echoed in his head.

“What’s your job?” Naomi asked. 

“I’m a crime scene investigator.”

“Ah, so you get it.” 

“That I do,” Nick smiled, he ducked his head, feeling relief in the small foundation of similarity laid between them. 

But it wasn’t any less awkward, as they fell into a weird silence.

“You gotta do this often, or--?”

“This is, uh, this is a bit awkward, but I’m a terrible liar and can’t keep this up,” Naomi interjected, suddenly, and her demeanor changed as she sat up straight in the chair. “I knew your name, knew your job...I...sort of met you before.”

“A couple nights ago, yeah, you came in, asked if I was okay--” Nick’s smile faltered, but he tried to keep their conversation from sinking as the warning signs flashed in his head.

“No, uhm...before that.”

Nick’s heart filled with dread. Not only was this shaping to be too much like the other _ babysitter _ situation, but potentially another _ stalker _one, too.

Or worse.

Another _ Veronica. _

“It was about...twelve? Thirteen years ago. You, uh, you were working a case with some guy named Gil Grissom, I was kind of hoping to see him visit you with the rest of your team, but he wasn’t there? What happened to him? A-anyway, that-that’s not the point--I, uhm, I was...hiding. Cause my...my family had just been killed and I had just been raped.” 

Her own bluntness didn’t surprise Nick so much as the reveal of a scar that was presumably associated with her aforementioned trauma. She brought a hand to her neck and began to rub it, and Nick focused his eyes, saw the faint trace of a scar that he hadn’t seen before, perhaps it was the lighting of his unfocused mind. He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration, trying to think back, but it had been over a decade, and he had worked _ so many cases… _

Naomi cleared her throat and continued her rant, anyway, filling in the blanks of his memory.

“You found me in a tree. Called me down, a-and I...I don’t know why, but I just...trusted you. I came down from the tree, you brought me to safety. Held my hand when they asked me what happened. You even showed up to court when they finally caught the son of a bitch. And I...never forgot that. The...strength you had, in working such a horrific crime but being able to still help a lost little girl, who just...didn’t know how to feel about it all. Your kindness. Your..._ empathy.” _

She paused, and Nick’s breathing steadied some, still echoed in his own chest, his own ears, but somehow, his heart had gone out to this haunted woman, and he felt a little more at ease, though he wasn’t completely disarmed though she _ seemed _genuine.

Yet at the same time, he still couldn’t get a good read on her emotions. She didn’t necessarily seem...sad about her recounting of the past, a little nervous, maybe, but that might have been because she was oversharing details that really, Nick didn’t need to know. It was as if she were reading out of a history textbook, rather than speaking from her heart. 

Then again, trauma at such a young age has a way of manifesting in people in different ways. His abundance of emotion, ability to read and validate others’ emotions, seemed to complement her void of such.

“I guess...that’s why I became a nurse. To help people. Like you helped me. And I just...thank you. For that.” 

Almost out of his own control, he reached for her hand, tangled her fingers between his. 

He didn’t know what to say, but it was a moment in which nothing _ needed _to be said. An old bond he had formed with a victim, reinforced over a decade later with his own victimization. 

The thought of which seemed to act as a bridge in the conversation. Naomi pulled herself and Nick out of memory lane, and broke the silence. 

“So, how’d _ you _end up here?” 

“Got shot.”

It was the easiest answer he could give.

“Lot of damage for just a bullet wound.”

“Had an...improvised surgery.”

“Guess it wasn’t that successful, huh? Hey, you’re not supposed to be doing that,” Naomi raised her eyebrows, reeled his fingers back in as they had tried to separate from her hand. 

“Wasn’t gonna...pick at them. Was just gonna scratch my head…” Nick muttered sheepishly. 

“Like I said before, people lie, and you, Nick Stokes, _ are a person.” _

“Thought you said you were a bad liar,” Nick laughed.

“Just cause I can’t lie doesn’t mean I can’t tell when others are full of shit. Besides, you got a tell, Stokes.”

“Oh, really? And what’s that?” 

“The look of mischief in your eyes...and your tongue flicking out of your mouth.” 

“Mm. Well, since you don’t seem to have a lot of faith in me, guess we’re just gonna have to keep holding hands then, huh?”

He didn’t exactly _ hate _it, anyway.

“Any other day, I’d have you buy me a drink, first.”

“Any other day, I would.”

Nick shut his mouth tight as his cheeks burned. Naomi’s eyes widened as her own mind seemed to freeze. 

“I...shouldn’t have said that...There’s, uhm...I got this...this guy…”

“The spiky haired dude?” 

“Yeah. We’re not exactly...but we’re not exactly not…”

“It’s okay. I’m on the clock, I shouldn’t be flirting with the patients.”

They fell back into another silence, slightly more comfortable than before, but still not without its awkwardness. 

“Do you believe in parallel universes?” Naomi broke the silence yet again, in a low voice, her eyes watching the hallway to ensure nobody was watching them, as if this topic was some sort of secret.

“I...don’t know. Never really crossed my mind, I guess. Too focused on living in this one to think of the other ones that might be out there,” Nick reflected. “Wh-where did this question even come from?” 

“Don’t know. Figured some random topic like that would be a good distraction. Seems like it worked,” Naomi nodded to their parted hands, and Nick took it as a sign of trust, so he indulged in vocalizing the thought that he previously would have kept to himself.

“Maybe in another universe...we would have that drink.” 

“Maybe,” Naomi nodded.

Nick felt an itch in his leg, his fingers danced in the air, but he brought his eyes up to look at Naomi, who was watching him carefully. A lightbulb went off in his head, that was all he needed.

A distraction. 

“You got any other questions?” 

And questions, Naomi Proot seemed to have in great abundance. And not just that, but stories, too. Both of them had a decades worth of stories, some that had long been dormant in their own minds, others that had been spoken into existence many times over. But there was something about Nick talking to Naomi, and Naomi talking to Nick that seemed to just...fit. Any residual awkwardness was washed away with the words exchanged between the pair into the early hours of the morning. 

Her shift was nearly over, just about an hour left, before visiting hours would be opened, and he would be under the watchful eyes of his friends and family. 

And then, her pager went off. 

“Ah, shit. I gotta go...emergency,” she muttered. If Nick didn’t know any better, he would have thought she was remorseful as she pulled out a box from underneath the hospital bed that contained the restraints that she quickly went to work on assembling on the bed. 

“You d-don’t hav-have to do that,” Nick stuttered nervously. “I promise you, I ain’t going anywhere…”

“I know that, and the other nurses including Miss Blunt know that...but we don’t know that you won’t just try to get those staples out of your leg like you were before…”

“Please,” Nick begged as she wrapped one cuff around his wrist. “Please, you don’t...you don’t understand…”

“I know I don’t. But...it’s not my job to understand you. It’s my job to keep you healthy...and _ safe.” _

She secured the other cuff, and Nick tried to move his wrists, break away from them. 

He couldn’t.

"Please, don't leave me!" he cried out, but he quickly pursed his lips, hung his head in shame. 

“For what it’s worth...I really am sorry,” Naomi told him, not meeting his eyes as she paused in the doorway, her fingers tracing the line on her neck before she left the now restrained Nick, back on the shelf.

Back in the bottle. 


	19. Tough Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick discusses some details of his captivity with DB, and Greg takes him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for me doing my absolutely, perhaps a little unnecessary worst on this chapter that I think I'm even more nervous about since we began this fic to begin with. 
> 
> if you've made it this far, know that I fully appreciate your time and attention in reading this. it means the world to me, more than you know.

All the time and energy spent fretting over his broken leg had made Nick forget about his back, but a flare of pain as he was transported from the hospital bed to a not so-comfortable wheelchair reminded him that more than just his leg had been damaged by Veronica’s...rough housing. 

Then again it wasn’t all  _ her  _ fault. It was his, for thinking he could escape when he tried to climb that wall, and then subsequently fell. For forgetting that he already had a predisposed risk from the constant strain on his back, something that had haunted him going all the way back to his days on the football field in high school, or baseball field in college. Constant running and sliding onto the earth, before it had swallowed him whole. Constant lifting of heavy boxes as he’s moved into new living spaces, or the occasional strenuous labor during investigations--hours spent on sliding boards underneath cars, climbing ladders, diving into dumpsters. Constant manhandling, his body balled up like crumpled paper to fit into the boot of various cars. Constant falls, whether from a window, shotgun blast, explosion, or a flight of stairs.

Constant entrapment, an entire day spent lying on the world’s flattest, hardest surface before being plucked out of the earth in the beak of a bird like the worm that he was. His body had flailed with such intensity that he was certain that in his imprisonment, his spine had been solidified like cement and was then hit with a jackhammer. 

The doctors had told him back then he was just sore from the lack of movement, and even his sleep deprived brain had told him that he wasn’t actually suffering from rigor mortis, he just needed to  _ move.  _ The first chance he got, he had taken a walk, outside, in fresh air. And then the walk turned into a jog. And the jog turned into a run. Because he was  _ alive,  _ he was  _ free _ , he was  _ above ground,  _ and more importantly than any of those, he wasn’t  _ broken _ .

A few days, even his skin was cleared. Hardly any scars, so long as he didn’t pick at the scabs, which was an exercise in self restraint, especially on his hands. No lasting damage to his body, though he made sure to carry an epi-pen on him in the event that he fell victim to another case of anaphylaxis. A couple of mandated therapy sessions and a quick visit to a prison, and he was back to work within a few weeks, welcomed back into the open arms of his team, his  _ family,  _ with a new lease on life because he almost just lost it, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose it again. He heeded the advice of his doctors, started a healthy diet, continued to exercise, attempted to sleep as much as he could, to fend off the dark wave of decay that threatened to pop his joints, snap his back, suck all of the dopamine and serotonin out of his brain, and his sense of self along with it. 

But somewhere along the line...things changed. He grew more reckless, careless about his own well being as others fell into the same terrible fates he fought so hard against. Sara’s depression that Nick felt extreme guilt over not noticing before, when the signs were  _ so clear. _ Grissom’s retirement made him wonder how long he could last without his favorite teacher, and also wonder if he would be stuck in the same place for the rest of his life. Langston’s obsession with two serial killers blistered the soles of Nick’s feet, having walked alongside the man on the blazen trail of his self destruction.

Warrick’s death. Far before his time. 

Innocent lives taken and destroyed, all because he couldn’t do his job. He couldn’t work faster. Couldn’t react faster. Couldn’t see the signs.

Wasn’t even man enough to bring down the hammer of justice onto the monster who took the life of his best friend.

Then again, he wasn’t a man at all. 

So why did he care to even try to move, to do things himself? To take control when all of it had been taken away from him in the punishment of his incompetence, his selfishness, because he could have stopped all of the suffering that those around him endured.

Just like he could have stopped himself from cutting Greg, nearly amputating the poor man’s arm off. 

Only because Veronica told him to. 

And he obeyed, out of sheer  _ terror  _ of what  _ she  _ would have done to Greg instead. 

_ Either you do it, or I will.  _

He couldn’t even do  _ that  _ right, apparently, the framed picture of the disappointment on Veronica’s face decorated on the vast wall of people he’s let down in his life, their gazes boring into the depths of Nick’s psyche, and yet he still wondered why she didn’t want him. Threatened to get rid of him, to  _ sell _ him. Her favorite toy, tossed aside because he wasn’t fulfilling her desires, wasn’t fun to play with anymore. 

So what was his purpose now? To be toted around, because all of the sudden his friends and family decided to give a shit about him? Or was it to serve their desires, because all of the other attractions around them were occupied, so he was all that was left on the list of things to do, to observe, to talk to and  _ play  _ with.

Or to give them the inside scoop of what happened in Veronica’s Toy Box, because Greg only got a preview of the main event, and in order to obtain more details on the case file, DB had come first thing in the morning to talk to Nick, who was tied to the bed in a similar manner to the twist ties on the Barbie dolls he bought for his nieces the previous year on Christmas. It was his idea to give Nick a much needed change of scenery, bring him over to a nearby sun room meant for the patients to have a momentary escape from their cells because while the hospital was not a prison, it sure as hell felt like one.

He figured it was a better time now that Nick was out of surgery, his mind more present after medically induced rest and nutrition, to discuss Nick’s experience and fill in the blanks on what they didn’t know, and clarify what they did know through the blubbery hysteria of a weary, drugged man had managed to tell them before. 

He almost hoped that they could have just watched the cameras Veronica had all over the shelter, see for themselves, but Nick was as shocked as the rest were when he found out that the video capture of his captivity was not found at the crime scene. 

The thought of what happened to that footage was just another on the long list of things that kept him up at night.

He had tried to wheel himself around in the wheelchair he had been placed into, but even if the nurse hadn’t took the initiative to cross Nick’s hands over each other in his lap, commenting how gentle he was for a man who had such tough skin, he wouldn’t have been able to use the tingling sticks that were his fingers to turn the wheel. A stark reminder that he was nothing but a lifeless possession, as control of his own body continued to elude him despite his best efforts. 

“Is here okay, sweetheart?” the nurse asked him, positioning him on the end of a table next to a window that gave a view of the city of Las Vegas. 

“Yeah, ‘s fine,” he mumbled with a tight nod, his eyes focused on the Vegas cityscape, the tiny cars filled with tiny people going about their every days lives under the bright rays of the Nevada sun that normally accentuates the vibrant colors of the city in the daytime in the absence of the pulsing neon of the night, but at that moment everything instead looked dull, faded. Bleak, even, as his eyes anxiously awaited Veronica to emerge from the shadows of the clouds above, stomp her way over to the hospital and tap against the glass, beckoning Nick to fall right back into the palm of her hand.

Suddenly he didn’t want to sit by the window anymore.

“You want some...coffee or water, anything?”

Nick was grateful that DB hadn’t gone for the usual method breaking the ice, asking about his  _ feelings.  _ What would DB be able to do about his  _ feelings  _ anyway? Dolls didn’t have feelings. 

He shook his head, though his mouth was very dry. Water would be nice, but he didn’t feel like getting his face splashed with the bottle, which was the only way he would ever get water if Veronica had anything to say about it. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself, embarrass his boss in the room filled with patients enduring much more difficult times than him. 

“I...know it’s gonna be difficult, but you know the drill.”

Nick’s eyes darted away from the window, studied the pad of paper on top of a file that he knew held pictures, eyewitness accounts, details on the suspect or suspects, his eyes narrowed as he found that there were more than just one manilla folder, both labeled with different case numbers, and that’s when his eyes darted to the exit of the room, where the hospital security had been replaced by Officer Mitchell, and part of him selfishly thought that maybe it was an effort to protect Nick, with Veronica still on the loose.

But another part of him realized that maybe it was also to protect Nick from harming others, as well. They took the restraints off of him only because he was under watchful eyes, not because he was trusted. 

And another part of him had the thought; DB wasn’t just here to get the victim’s testimony, but also to interview a witness...and potential suspect. 

Greg must have told DB what he did. What he could never take back. What he, despite his claim to Greg, would  _ always remember.  _

Maybe Greg was sick of him. That’s why he left so easily the day before. Maybe he left to go tell DB that Nick was essentially an accomplice to his plight, just as guilty as Veronica herself. Veronica was almost going to let Nick  _ keep  _ Greg for himself, after all. A russian nesting doll set, in which Greg belong to Nick, Nick belonged to Veronica. 

So no wonder Greg never reciprocated Nick’s confession of love, cause now he viewed Nick in the same way that Nick viewed Veronica. As an  _ owner. _

And Greg didn’t deserve to think that.

“Nick?”

Startled, Nick’s exhale shook out of his body and he nodded, indicating to DB that he was finally ready to talk. 

“Don’t even know where to begin,” he chuckled breathlessly, then tried to suck in air through gritted teeth. 

“Morgan said you and her were at a club, the Purple Vortex, the night we think you disappeared.” 

It seemed like years ago. A different lifetime, even. Back when he was still a human. Back when he was alive.

“Getting a few drinks, yeah,” Nick confirmed. “That’s when I saw her. At the bar.”

“Veronica?”

Nick gulped, his ears perked up, as if saying her name would summon her. He nodded stiffly.

“You didn’t see anybody else there that you recognized?”

“No, I took off the minute I saw her. Ran off into...some alley and then into some building.”

He remembered the steam, how hot and thick the air was, sweating in desperation.

“She shot and then drugged me. I woke up at the shelter. In a cell.” 

The low hum of the bustling hospital was lost to the echoes of leaking pipes, bouncing screams, gentle, fevered sobs.

“So your car, it was left at the bar?” 

“As far as I know...yeah. She...smashed my phone, too.” 

His car. His phone. It would be such a hassle to get new ones, especially the car. He hadn’t even paid half of the old one off yet. 

“At the shelter, what…” DB paused. He sighed, hung his head for a second. For a moment, Nick felt he saw a glimpse of the soft, grandfatherly man he witnessed comforting a young child in the hospital, but with a soft sigh and a long blink, the professional wall was thrown back up before continuing, “What did she do to you?”

Nick inwardly cringed at the question. The tone in which DB used was almost...reluctant. Insensitive. He didn’t  _ really  _ want to know, probably didn’t actually care what Veronica did to Nick. It was just trivial information, necessary to complete the report so that the case could be officially closed. He had seen the damage, he was a smart man, Nick was certain he’d be able to piece it together, at least on the physical level. The bruises, the cuts, the fading abrasion around his neck, the desiccation of his leg. 

On a mental level, she had revealed to Nick the truth about his existence. That it didn’t matter.  _ He  _ didn’t matter. He was there just to serve her desires, and he was doing a terrible job at it, hence the punishments; the physical and mental reductions he suffered in his captivity. A dissociation from the identity he had once claimed for himself, before he fully understood there was no more “self” to identify with. 

And how the hell would he explain all of that to DB goddamn Russell? How could he explain it to the shrink that he knows he’ll be mandated to see? 

Even Greg wouldn’t understand. And he was  _ there _ for a small percentage of it.

What good would the information do anyway, in the long run? Add onto the list of already expansive charges filed against Veronica? 

If it were up to Nick, she’d be given the death penalty anyway. 

“She...put the collar on me. Took the bullet outta my leg. Showered me, fed me, gave me water…”

_ You’re welcome, my little Nicky… _

He cleared his throat. 

“Just...kept me there. Locked up.”

Well,  _ mostly  _ locked up, he posited.

“She never took out of the shelter?”

“No.”

_ Yes.  _

“Not--not exactly,” he stammered, interrupting DB as he was scribbling something in his notes. 

DB looked up at Nick, but Nick didn’t meet his eyes. He instead chose to once again look out the window, at the blue sky. His fingers shook as he wrung his hands nervously together. DB didn’t press for him to elaborate, part of him hoped the topic would just be dropped all together, but he knew better. 

“I helped her move the body. Into my car.” 

“Whose body?” 

“Fuh-Phillip,” Nick spoke thickly. “That’s what you wanted to ask me about, wasn’t it?” 

Nick half-nodded his head towards the files, now realizing that one of them was the Phillip Strombert file. 

That’s why Officer Mitchell was there. Not to arrest him for the crimes he did against Greg, but for his crimes against Phillip. Because Nick wasn’t just Veronica’s toy. 

He was her accomplice.

“He...he was one of her other dolls.”

His eyes were burning, he wanted to close them, but every time he did he was back in the shelter. 

Besides, dolls don’t blink.

“Her ‘dolls?’”

“There were...others. She was gonna...sell them off. She had me clean him up. Put one of…” he gulped, the world didn’t seem right, he had no ownership of anything. Except Greg. “... _ my _ ties on him. Give him a shave.”

_ The razor was in his hand, he put extra effort to keep the grip on it in his sweaty palm. Veronica was waiting expectantly for him to make a move, to follow her instruction and shave Phillip...or...there was another option, a decision he could make that would turn the tide and change everything. It was a true test of his will, she even had the blade pointed towards herself, an unspoken dare, “go on, try it.” _

_ And he was stupid and a little selfish enough to do it.  _

“I was...I just...I tried to fight back,” his voice cracked, he couldn’t stop a tear from rolling down his cheek.

_ In one movement, he had sliced her neck, then pushed her with his other hand. Veronica fell backwards, and he used the momentum to lean forward, severing the ties that bound Philip. He jostled the man out of his own shock as Veronica screamed and cursed, reeling in her own injury.  _

_ “GET OUT OF HERE! GO!” Nick shouted at the man, and with one wild, desperate look at Nick he fled. _

_ Or, at least, attempted to flee. _

_ As did Nick, who didn’t make it more than a few steps hobbling on his injured leg. Veronica had taken care of him first, easily stopping him with a swift kick to his thigh that sent him back to the ground. She stepped on his back on her way to Phillip, who she grabbed from behind, slammed him into the door that he tried--and failed--to open, there was a deadbolt, and only Veronica had the key. _

_ “YOU--STUPID--MOTHERFUCKERS--DID--YOU--REALLY--THINK--I--WOULDN’T--BE--PREPARED?” she roared in a tearful, shrill voice as she continued to bash Phillip’s head into the steel padded lock. Nick was able to wade through the water clouding his vision just in time to see Veronica slamming Phillip down into the chair in front of him, a large gash on his forehead dripping blood onto the floor. His body slumped, dazed, as Nick tried to crawl away-- _

_ “Ah, ah, ah!” Veronica warned him. “You stay RIGHT THERE, Nick!”  _

_ He didn’t listen, sweating profuse fear and adrenaline, he wasn’t just crawling, he was scrambling towards the door, this was his only chance, as Veronica staggered around, one hand tightly pressed into her neck in effort to stop the bleeding of Nick’s attack.  _

_ Once again, she kicked him, this time right in his ass, and he pummeled back towards the ground. She turned him over, and pinned him to the ground with her foot. Nick’s pained groans faded into pants, alternating with her own breaths, they locked eyes for what seemed like eternity before Veronica spoke again, her tone as harsh and piercing as her eyes. _

_ “I am so disappointed in you, Nicky. So...very...disappointed.”  _

_ Using her free hand, she reached for her keys, making a point to wave them through the air, and pressed the button, sending a shock that seized Nick’s body.  _

_ “You can never do anything right.” _

_ She pressed it again. _

_ “You are NOTHING.”  _

_ Another shock, and she removed her hand from her neck. She reached for a large knife that was on the operating table, its blade pointed down at Nick.  _

_ “I-I’m s-sorry--” he tried to plead, he did his best to make himself seem small, submissive. Regretful. He needed to de-escalate the situation, and fast, because Veronica was very impulsive, and this knife was large enough to do more than just the superficial cut that he gave her. _

_ “TOO LATE!” she shrieked, and her foot removed from his chest, and swung to kick the side of his face. She turned back towards Phillip, stood behind him, knife in one hand, she clutched a fistful of hair with the other, tilted his head back, exposing his neck, his protruding veins throbbing furiously.  _

_ Nick, still panting, tried to look away, but the jangle of keys kept his attention and kept him rooted to the spot on the floor, forced to hold up the stone that was his head to watch the horror as Veronica brought the knife in front of Phillip, up against his neck. _

_ “This is your fault,” Veronica told him, and didn’t just slice, but severed the man’s head. _

“There was blood...everywhere.” 

The irony of his own words echoing that of a tearful murderer’s confession was not lost on him. 

_ Your fault, your fault, your fault! A sickening sing-song, the words rang as loud as Phillip’s screams, as his decapitation was a long and arduous process, and by the end of it, Nick was sobbing, and Veronica was laughing, tossing his head up like a ball before catching it in her hands.  _

_ “Why are you crying, Nicky? You wanted this. You did this.” _

_ “No, no I didn’t--” he sniffled, shaking his head, his mind somehow only filled with thoughts of what camera shots he would take, where he would place the evidence markers, the urge to bark at Veronica to not touch the body until the coroner arrives-- _

_ “YES, YOU DID, NICK!” she boomed, and sidestepped around the chair, started to walk towards the cowering man on the floor. She threw the head carelessly behind her, it rolled into the closed door into the hallway, where he could just barely hear the soft, muffled sobs of the other dolls under his own.  _

_ “YOU DID THIS! You did this, my little Nicky, and now we have to clean it up. Look at that, his blood--” She grabbed Nick’s hands--which he had held up in front of him, terrified as to what she would do--pulled him up, brought him over to Phillip's body. She put his hands on top of the bloodied stump, playfully slapping his hands as if they were playing patty-cake. _

_ “Now, I hope you realize, none of this would have happened if you had just listened to me, Nick!” _

_ “I’m sorry!” he choked out, squirming as she gripped his arms from behind, he could feel her body pressed up against his back with little to no actual separation between their bodies, could feel her body slide up against him, as she must have stood on her tip-toes to reach his head, whisper in his ear. _

_ “I know you’re not,” she hissed. “You’re not sorry. You never are. I don’t think you EVER will be, but you have a lesson that needs to be learned, because you hurt me, Nick. And now...I’m going to hurt you.” _

_ “Pl-please, j-just...let me go…” _

_ “Oh, it’s far too late to beg, little one,” Veronica chastised him as she pulled him away from the headless body. She wrapped her fingers around the back of his collar, dragged him from behind. He didn’t even try to struggle, just continued sobbing as they moved past the door to the hallway to his cell and cage--which he almost wished he could crawl to in that moment--and into the shower room.  _

_ She flipped a switch and the room was flooded in harsh, industrial light, revealing the full berth of the room that he hadn’t quite seen before. There were a few other stalls than the one he had initially taken a shower in, though one of those stalls was occupied with a fallen locker, its door hung open, its contents empty.  _

_ She pushed him to the floor, and he landed on his hands and knees. _

_ “Crawl over there and get in.” _

_ “No-no, please, d-don’t make me--I’m s-sorry!” he pleaded.  _

_ “Get in!” Veronica repeated, she quickly retrieved her keys, dangled them in the air. “I am not going to tell you again!” _

_ Nick took as much time as he could, though he knew she had no trouble in letting him take eternity as he moved towards his new prison, sizing up its shape, he thought he wouldn’t have room to put his arms by his sides--and he didn’t. He barely fit inside as he climbed into it, but Veronica didn’t care, once he was inside, she slammed the top shut, and through his slow ascent into a hysterical cry, he could hear the click-click-click-click of the lock that sealed him in. For a few moments, he was still able to see in his enclosure through the slits in front of him that filtered the precious oxygen, but he wailed as the light snapped out, and he felt robbed of air. _

_ “STOP CRYING!” Veronica shrieked. “I have to clean up the mess YOU made and I can’t concentrate with all of this blubbering. Just SHUT THE FUCK UP!”  _

_ Nick did his best to snuff the high whines that laced his hyperventilation, but he couldn’t stop his bloodied fingers from clawing at the surface in front of him.  _

_ He hoped that she couldn’t hear that. _

“That’s...when she must have gotten the car.” 

_ The  _ car. Not  _ his  _ car. Nothing was “his” at that point.

Only his fault.

His mouth was dry. He wondered if it was too late to accept the water DB offered before, though he needed something  _ much stronger  _ than water at this point. Something to take the edge off. “The keys were in its pants.”

Fortunately for him, DB somehow missed Nick calling himself an “it.”

_ He didn’t even bother keeping track of time. It could have been minutes, hours, or days before he was able to fully breathe again. He was too distracted, too distraught, wrapped up in his own self loathing and pity as he tried to think of ways he could repent for this sin, for this death of a man who, while suspicious and shady in the context of the case he was suspended from, was completely innocent in this circumstance. Wrong place at the wrong time.  _

_ And yet part of him still selfishly thought, the man got what he deserved.  _

_ Just as Nick was getting what he deserved in this punishment. _

_ He couldn’t even sing to comfort himself in his confinement, because he had to be quiet. Veronica needed to concentrate and he was annoying her.  _

_ He gasped, then quickly pursed his lips, concealing the returning fit of sobs as the light was turned on again, followed promptly by the reverse clicking of the lock that boiled the goosebumps on his skin. _

_ Part of him hoped--prayed that it would be someone there to save him. Take him away, out of this nightmare, but another part of him knew that would never happen so easily. His life wasn’t a work of fiction, this wasn’t a story where he’d make it out either by his own agency or some heroic rescue. The credit’s wouldn’t roll. This was never going to end. _

_ This was real, and so was the woman looming above him, now donning a patch on her neck that was stained with the blood bleeding through the fabric, hidden beneath the collar of a turtleneck sweater--one that he recognized as his own, it was over-sized on her curvature, made her seem younger than she really was, like an actual young girl playing with her dolls. She had a sad smile on her face, her eyes now void of the malicious intent they contained before, instead filled with...something else. _

_ And yet, mostly out of muscle memory, he found himself begging for a connection, with another life, any life--he reached a shaking arm, clutched her shirt with his fist, pulling her in, because damn if he didn’t need a fucking hug or something right now... _

_ And she smiled. _

_ “Oh, you poor thing…”  _

_ One of her hands wrapped around Nick’s arm, around his wrist, and she kissed the knuckles of his fist softly. Using the other, she reached in, her fingers touching the side of his cheek, cold, though she pulled a face as she breathed in the stench of his sweat, tears and desecration.  _

_ “I-I’ll b-beha-a-ve,” he gasped as he fought against the invisible bonds that were constricting his lungs. _

_ “I’m sure you will,” Veronica cooed, moving her fingers up through his hair, ruffling it up from its sweaty flatness. “I think you learned your lesson, didn’t you? I think a little tough love is just what you needed.” _

_ He reluctantly nodded, too afraid to make a move to get out of the locker. _

_ Out of the box. _

_ Especially when he promised that he wouldn’t move. _

_ There was a bomb underneath that would explode if he didn’t do exactly as he was told. _

_ “Cause you know that, right? I love you.” _

_ He was grateful that she didn’t seem upset when he didn’t take the bait to reciprocate the feeling, instead relishing in his sudden submission which was slowly starting to deteriorate, but he couldn’t let her see that. Couldn’t let her see that no, the bitch hadn’t broken him entirely, there’s still part of him there, unrelenting, everlasting. _

_ Just as he couldn’t let her see just how tightly he was holding onto her, afraid that if he let go, he’d be swallowed whole into the core of the earth.  _

_ “I need your help, my sweet Nicky,” she whispered into his ear as she continued to stroke his hair. “Or rather, I need your muscles. We’ll clean you up first, though.” _

“She had me lift him into my trunk. Let me stand outside for about a minute before we went back in and I was locked up in my cell again,” Nick cleared his throat abruptly, DB certainly didn’t need to know the extraneous details of what Veronica called “his reward,” glorified pampering of her favorite pet.

“You never saw anybody else help her move the bodies?”

_ You mean the merchandise? _

“No...but she could...she did often...do it on her own. She was able to pick me up, drag m-me around. She coulda dragged him, too...”

But that was because he was lighter than just dead weight. He was a doll, after all. Easy to pick up, by design, being a plaything meant for childish desire. 

He closed his eyes, knowing fully well the images it would conjure, but he couldn’t look out the window anymore. Couldn’t look at the overwhelmingly vibrant sky. Couldn’t look at DB, who was looking at him in the same pity that they show all of their victims when they document their stories. Couldn’t look at anything, wanted to just drift off into the black void that was slowly warbling into a memory of how he and Veronica worked together to lift Phillip’s body up the stairs and into the trunk of his own car that he hadn’t seen in over a week. How he restrained himself from leaving Veronica--he easily could have just overpowered her, ran off with his car, but he knew he couldn’t, or else she would go after the other three dolls in the Toy Box.

No, the other three people.

The other three  _ people.  _

The other three people who had their own lives, their own friends, their own families, unfairly taken at the whim of a psycho who figured they’d suit her customers. They didn’t deserve it. 

“The others...as far as I know...she didn’t...didn’t kill them. Sold off. Trafficked away. When the buyers came around...that’s...that’s when I sent the picture.” 

He gulped, sensing DB’s sad expression as he continued to hear the scribble of a pen on paper.

“How many...others were there?”

“Three, but I only really ever saw...the details of one. A woman. Long hair, tied back in a ponytail. Freckles on her face. Sharp nose.” 

The memory morphed, he was back in his cell, rewarded with a new pair of underwear and a bag of bread crusts. He met eyes with a woman who was frozen, but slowly coming to life. Her lips twitched, her mouth slowly pried itself apart, forming silent words, the only noise coming out of her throat was strangled, broken. Just like him. 

“I think she tried talkin’ to me but...I couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t...help her.”

He couldn’t help any of them. Not then. 

But now? Now that he was free, on the track back to work?

Perhaps Nick finally figured out his penance. 

“Alright, I think we’re good for now, Nick,” DB cleared his throat. He heard the slide of a chair, and Nick’s eyes opened, and for a few seconds, he was disoriented, forgetting they were in a hospital. “Mitch is gonna keep watch of you until you’re released, just in case...well..something happens.”

Like Veronica coming back, Nick finally realized, and only took a little solace in his exoneration of guilt, noting that DB was packing up instead of instructing anybody to cuff Nick.

“What about Greg?” Nick asked dully. Might as well talk about the wound while the band-aid was open.

“We...got what we needed to know from him already,” DB started slowly. “We can talk about him another time, I think we’ve stretched the rubber band as far as it can go today, don’t you?”

Nick huffed a short chuckle, nodded with a half-smile. 

“Hey--” DB put a hand on Nick’s shoulder, another cupped the back of his head, lifted his head to look at DB fully for the first time since they began talking. “Listen to me, bud...None of this--you hear me,  _ none of this  _ was your fault, okay? She killed him. You didn’t.”

_ No, but I almost killed Greg. _

* * *

It was an odd sight to behold, and he did his best to pull himself out of the tragedy of such a surrealism, and rather into the joy that there was a chance of a return to some sort of normal was finally happening. For the first time in over a week, Nick was fully clothed and standing.

Mostly, as he wasn’t standing completely on his own. He was standing on crutches, staring down at the plastic bag in front of him on the bed filled with the few belongings he had. He had a feeling that Nick was standing just because he could, though he knew how uncomfortable the crutches would be on his arms. 

He wanted to make a remark, playfully jab at the fact that Nick just had  _ so much  _ packing to do, but didn’t know if Nick’s scattered mind was ready for sarcasm again. He didn’t want to take advantage of the fact that this was the most composed he had seen the man since the last time they had seen each other before the shelter. Didn’t want to risk the chance that Nick was a ticking time bomb, ready to just explode into a fit of rage, or hysterics, or both. 

He went with a gentle knock and a warm smile, which was as genuine as the light in Nick’s eyes when he looked up to find Greg in the doorway, accompanied by Sara.

“Ready to blow this popsicle stand?” Greg winced inside his head, wasn’t the best line he could come up with on short notice.

“Didn’t expect to see you two here,” Nick smiled. “Thought my Ma was comin’ to pick me up?” 

“She was, but we offered to help her out and this was first on her list,” Sara replied, stepping into the room and bestowing a quick hug. 

“List? Oh, no,” Nick groaned in mock disgust. 

“Hey, small price to pay for freedom, isn’t it?” Greg chuckled, and he felt his ear burn with the tasteless comment. 

Luckily, Nick didn’t seem to pay the words attention anyway. 

“Hey, man, far as I’m concerned, I got a pizza and a six pack of beer with my name on it at home, I’ll take it with whatever company it gives me.”

“Should you really be drinking with all these meds?” Sara scrunched her face, studying Nick’s array of pain medication.

“I won’t take it if I do,” Nick shrugged. “C’mon, I don’t want those nurses to start missin’ me.” 

“Not so fast, Stokes!” 

As if on cue, one of the nurses that had taken care of Nick during his stay barged in the room with a wheelchair. 

“You know the rules, sir.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nick sheepishly nodded, glumly sitting in the wheelchair. He started grunting as he tried to figure out a way to maneuver the wheels with the crutches in his lap. 

“It’s alright, I’ll push you. Never steered you wrong before,” Greg quickly cut in, grabbing the chair from behind.

“I bet to differ, there was the hemorrhoid cream...” Nick drawled. 

“Man, you’ll never let me live that down, huh?”

“I’m not even going to ask,” the nurse shook her head, before bestowing a packet of paper to Sara. “This is the list of instructions. He follows them, he’ll be back to work in no time.”

“And...if he doesn’t?” Sara asked, her lips puckered. 

“Then he’ll have to come back here and complete his rehab.” 

“All the old ladies kept lookin’ at me weird…” Nick muttered. 

“Thank you,” Sara cleared her throat, disguising her laugh. Greg had to cover his mouth as Nick leaned his head back, stared up at him with mischievous eyes to egg him on. 

“I will hopefully not see you  _ too  _ soon, Mr. Stokes,” the nurse pointed at him, and left the room. 

“Building up quite the fan club, huh?” Greg teased. 

“Yeah, we’re gonna get t-shirts made,” Nick teased back, and they fell into an oddly giddy fit of giggles. 

Once they made it to the elevator, Greg placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder, a little tentatively, but Nick seemed to shift comfortably beneath his palm. He even returned the gesture, crossing a hand over and behind him onto Greg’s, and it was the first time that the thought crossed his mind that perhaps, everything was going to be okay. Nick was going to be  _ okay.  _ Maybe not great, maybe not one hundred percent his old self, but the signs were there. He was still there, whether he realized it or not. 

He helped Greg find himself when he was lost in a swollen mess of flesh, and now, he was going to do the same for Nick. 

Greg had only been bent, after all, not necessarily broken from his experiences with Veronica.

Nick, however, was shattered _ ,  _ whether he’d admit it or not.

They had just made it out of the hospital when Sara’s phone went off, and she was reluctantly called to work. 

“I’ll stop by later, okay?” she pressed a soft kiss to the top of Nick’s head, and left the couple to themselves.

“What about you, you don’t have to…?” Nick trailed off in a mutter.

“I still have the week off,” Greg grinned, patting Nick on the shoulder. 

“I can--” Nick started to offer as they reached Greg’s car. It was his left leg that had been injured, after all, and Greg could already see him pu

“No,” Greg laughed. “Don’t feel like rolling today.”

Nick chortled in mock-hurt and Greg’s laughter intensified as he helped Nick into the car. 

“Now who’s not letting go, huh?” Nick chuckled. 

“See how it feels?” he teased as Nick shook his head, also laughing, and buckled into the seat. 

The drive home was smooth, almost  _ normal  _ as Nick continued to engage Greg in actual, sobered, lucid conversation. Greg was able to fool himself into thinking that this was just another drive spent between two peers, two  _ friends  _ and potentially even more, as he would stop and stare at Nick while they were paused at stoplights. 

As always with the initial aftermath of a traumatic experience, Nick seemed to have a new lease on life as his head laid against the passenger’s window, longingly staring at the surroundings, his eyes wide in wonder, as if he had never seen the city before. At one point, he even rolled the window down, the loud  _ ching-ching-CHINGs  _ of slot machines drowned out the alternative music blasting from Greg’s radio, but Greg didn’t necessarily mind. He smiled as Nick hung his head out, letting the wind waft against his face, his eyes closed and his lips curved in a gentle smile. 

He thought of a dog flopping his face in the breeze, thought of a child full of wonder, thought of the sensation of absolute  _ relief,  _ and more than that, thought of the real Nick Stokes, who had re-educated him on the sheer beauty of life itself. 

A welcome distraction, from thinking about  _ Veronica’s  _ Nick, who had sliced open his arm, and almost more than that.

“Home sweet home,” Greg mused as they pulled up to Nick’s driveway, parking behind what he presumed was Jillian Stokes’ rental car. 

Nick’s smile faltered, as his eyes studied the exterior of his home. 

“You alright?” Greg whispered softly. He placed a hand on Nick’s knee. 

“Yeah, G, ‘course I am,” Nick breathed, shaken out of his stir, he plastered on a smile and looked at Greg “No place like home, right?” 

Nick’s gaze returned to the exterior of his house, his fingers flexing nervously on the door handle. He remained silent, but Greg could almost hear the echo of his thoughts that hearkened back to Nick’s revelation that Veronica had taken residence at 922 Rose Avenue.”

_ “Living in my house, dressing in my clothes, pretending to be my girlfriend...” _

“You can always stay at my place, you know,” Greg offered. 

“I know.”

“I’m sure your Mom wouldn’t mind, o-or we could put her in a hotel--”

“It’s fine, Greg. I just...I need to do this. It’s  _ my  _ house.”

“Not hers,” he added in a low exhale.

Nick opened the car door, signaling that he was ready to move on. 

Within a minute they crossed the threshold, and Nick lost whatever bravado he pretended to have as Jillian immediately embraced him. 

“My baby boy,” she whispered, stroking Nick’s head. “Welcome home, sweetie.”

“Mama,” Nick sighed wistfully, he nuzzled his head into the space between her neck and shoulder, wrapped his arms around the woman before breaking off the hug and hobbling over to the couch. 

“Oh, thank you, Greg!” Within a second of Nick breaking free from her, Jillian scooped Greg up in a hug and a motherly smooching kiss. “You’re staying for supper, of course.”

Greg nodded, though he knew it wasn’t a question or a suggestion. It was just one of the unspoken commandments in the book of the Stokes southern hospitality, that friends of the Stokes siblings were treated as one of their own, and that meant staying for not just dinner, but dessert, too. 

“No, seriously,  _ stay,”  _ Nick affirmed with widened eyes and a nod as he plopped down onto his sofa, which earned him daggers from his mother’s eyes that wiped the smirk off his face. Though he winked playfully at Greg as soon as his mother’s back was turned, his tongue teasing out of his lips between his teeth. 

Once everything was settled, within minutes Jillian was chattering excitedly about all of the things she picked up for Nick, proclaiming that she was cooking his favorite meal, and while he seemed a little overwhelmed, Nick seemed to find some comfort in being home. He engaged in conversation, laughed at Greg’s jokes, feigned embarrassment as his mother began to tell Greg stories about a young, mischievous toddler with a striking resemblance to Nick making a “cake” in the early hours of the morning, covered head to toe in flower and egg yolk. 

And for the first time since he visited his family on Christmas, Greg felt like he was truly at home. Nick did too, judging by the sparkle in his eyes, the crinkles of his smiling face.

But then, when Greg’s back was turned for just a few minutes as he retrieved Nick a glass of water, and Jillian was in another room taking a phone call, something in his demeanor changed. The crinkles were flipped, weighed down in shadows. The glimmer in his eyes was gone, a blankness over took the already darkened color of his pupils. The soft tint of red in his blushing cheeks flushed out into a pale white, and he was biting down on his twitching lower lip.

“Hey, you wanna plug in the ol’ Dreamcast, take a true walk down memory lane?” Greg asked as he set down the glass on the side table.

Nick wasn’t moving, his eyes intently studying the chess board on the coffee table, a pawn piece wrapped up in his fingers. 

“Maybe some other time…” he mumbled. Greg truly did not hear him at first.

“What was that?”

“I said  _ maybe some other time,”  _ Nick snapped in a forcefully loud voice, and within an instant his head had also snapped itself to stare at Greg, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes glazed. Greg must have missed the movement of Nick’s head in his blink, otherwise he felt as if he had just transported to some other dimension in which Nick was pissed at him for some unknown reason. 

“Oh...uh, okay…” Greg nodded sheepishly. “H-how about some TV?” 

“I think I’m just gonna turn in for the night,” Nick inhaled sharply, putting the piece back down on the board. “Lie down in my own bed for a bit.”

“Haven’t gotten enough bed rest in the hospital?” Greg chuckled awkwardly. “Thought you’d be melted into the couch by now.”

Another glare from Nick, and he left the room without another word. 

It wasn’t until Nick had moved to his bedroom, kicking the door with his crutch behind him that Greg was able to put himself in Nick’s shoes so to speak by sitting down on the couch where he sat. He attempted to see what he had seen that had disturbed him so deeply, shut him down, because it had to be something in this room, previously unseen to Greg and Jillian that had triggered his sudden swing in mood. 

Something small, so insignificant that if Greg hadn’t been attuned to literally flip a room upside down to examine every little detail, he would have missed the carvings on the underside of the pieces on the chess board on Nick’s coffee table--and damn near missed the not-so-subtle message, of just two of the pieces left on the board, while all other pieces were knocked off to the side. He recalled how Nick held one of them in his hand, how he stared at the other. How he lashed out not at anything Greg had said or did, but at what had been left behind. 

“Me” and “you,” the queen and a pawn, in a state of the game somewhere beyond checkmate.


	20. The Doll's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick has a rough time on his first day home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's about time, isn't it? I've missed this. So much.

Two steps into his house, and he immediately noticed that something was off.

Nick had nearly forgotten the fact that Veronica had taken it upon herself to move into Nick’s house during his stay at the shelter, effectively violating the sanctity of the one place he thought he’d be able to re-discover himself, to find some solace as he’s reminded of what’s  _ his,  _ and nobody else’s. A container with divided rooms, where he can be surrounded by his own decorating choices, his favorite colors, his favorite foods, his favorite pillows and blankets and all the other comforts that a home has to offer. 

_ His  _ home.

Or so he thought.

He was foolish to think that Veronica wouldn’t have marked her territory, because he belonged to her and so did everything in his possession, evident by her use of his clothes which she had to have known he’d notice--especially when she hand delivered fresh pairs of underwear for him because  _ your foul stench will scare away the customers, Nicky. _

And on some level, he should have expected the liberties she took in playing with her doll’s house.

The first thing he caught was his dart board, with all of the darts pinned into the tiniest circle of the bullseye. He wasn’t that good at darts, not really. Only actually had the board because his brother gave it to him as a housewarming gift. He would use it on occasion during late night pacing, when he would weigh his options, see which one would make it to the center. 

He wondered if Veronica did the same, weighing her options of what she could do to him. 

And she chose all of them.

Including the one where she would have piled his mail from the last couple weeks like a winding staircase on the side table, showcasing the tears on each of the envelopes. Junk mail, sales offers, bills--he took a quick look around, surprised that he still had electricity before he remembered that he had paid that bill shortly before his abduction. 

He hadn’t even thought to check to see if she had taken his money, stolen his identity and credit cards, not that he had the chance to really do that at this point, but as he stared at the littered disaster of his kitchen counter filled with food he knew that he never kept in the house--especially peanut butter--that she must have gone shopping. And though it was knowledge he had already known, the reminder that she didn’t just break in, that she  _ lived  _ here was louder and more evident than ever before when he saw a plastic bag on the counter, filled with bread crusts, labeled “pet food.”

He swiped it off while he embraced his mother, chucked it in the bin before either she or Greg would notice, and with it, he hoped that he could throw away the sinking feeling as he could still taste the dry, bland food that was his only nourishment for those two weeks. Out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps nobody had paid as much attention as he did to the small changes to his house. He knew that his mother had already been camping out in the home since her arrival from Texas, paired with Sara’s fetching of street clothes for him the day before when he got the news he’d be released today. He allowed himself the small victory of tossing the bag out for what it represented of himself, and thought that maybe, if he could just keep doing that, keep undoing what she had done, he’d be able to find himself in this house again.

Until he noticed the chess set. 

A physical manifestation of the long game he was playing with Veronica. Even without looking at the pieces, the message was clear. She was bigger than him. She was the queen. She could take him out from any direction, with any move. 

The game was lost, and so was he. 

Even if he could return the chess board to normal, clean the slate, her markings were all over the pieces. 

All over  _ him.  _

Even if he rubbed off the permanent marker with alcohol, that wouldn’t erase it from his mind. He’d see those words until the end of time. He’d  _ feel  _ like hers until the end of time. 

Sure, he could throw away the chess set, the dart board, the bread crusts and all of the other items she soiled in his home, but any replacements would be just that. A  _ replacement  _ that would never fill the void. It would never be  _ exactly  _ the same. He would never be  _ exactly  _ the same.

After all, he still sees holes in his ceiling, even after moving out of the first doll house. 

He wasn’t fully aware that Greg had been talking to him since he had sat down on the couch, but as soon as he heard the tight air fill with silence, he filled it with his voice, and put the pieces back down on the table in defeat.

She’d probably just move them back the next time she came over, anyway.

“I think I’m just gonna turn in for the night. Lie down in my own bed for a bit.”

“Haven’t gotten enough bed rest in the hospital? Thought you’d be melted into the couch by now.”

He shot a warning glance towards Greg, though his annoyance was not necessarily at the man so much as it was towards the words themselves, the proclamation that he had gotten “bed rest” at the hospital. Sure, he was in a bed. For a short time, he had even been tied down to it. Sure, he was not in a conscious state of being for a majority of that time, medically induced sleep to shut down the doll’s brain from daring to think that maybe he was  _ safe-- _

But he sure as hell didn’t get any rest, and even after he tossed himself onto his own bed, he had a feeling the trend would continue. After a rare vacation or the more common stretch of doubles and triples, he would often look forward to falling back into the Nick-shaped space on his pillow, snuggled up in his comforter, on his luxury bed sheets, his brain pleasured with an influx of serotonin, even just for a few moments because  _ finally,  _ he could get some rest.

After damn near a month’s worth of time away from his home, and that feeling lasted all of one second, if that. More fleeting than ever before, because the imprint of his head didn’t line up with the pillow, and not only that, he smelled  _ her  _ on the pillowcase. Smelled  _ her  _ on his blanket. His sheets. His lips trembled as he imagined her lying next to him, stroking his hair, his back, cooing to him about how he was her “favorite.”

And not only that, but the bed was too soft. He felt like he was floating on a cloud, could fall through any second. 

Right back into her hands. 

Nick rolled off of the bed and carefully lowered himself onto the floor, which was easier said than done with the giant cast around his leg reminding him that try as he might, he wouldn’t be able to avoid the flare of pain in his movement. He winced in a self-cringe before he remembered that no, he had not actually removed his pain medication from the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, and sighed as he fumbled his way through the paper prescription bag to pour out the recommended dose--which took him longer than he’d care to admit in deciphering without his glasses. The tips of his fingernails burned as he resisted the urge to scratch at his eyes to relieve the itch from the contacts that had not been removed. 

He let out a moan once the pill passed through the shredded lining of his throat, and added water to the list of things he had wished he had taken with him in his self-imposed time-out.

He was being childish, his mother was taking time out of her life, her job to take care of him. Greg was taking time out of his own healing to take care of him. He should be more grateful, and yet, he couldn’t help but feel that they were doing it out of some sort of pity. Pity for the man who couldn’t walk on his own two feet, couldn’t sleep in his own bed, couldn’t even think of himself as a man at all.

He laid on the floor of his bedroom for an indeterminate amount of time, his internal clock winding around and around furiously with no discernible definition of what a second was, what a minute was, what an hour was. 

Veronica’s discarded toy. Even she didn’t want to play with him anymore. He was useless.

Worthless.

Nothing.

His eyes watered, but he didn’t dare shut them. Dolls don’t blink. He heard gentle knocks, heard the name that used to belong to him whisper through the crack beneath the door.

He didn’t dare answer. She’d hurt them if he spoke. 

Why did he ever let them come into his house? His mother and Greg, they were as good as Veronica’s as he was. Hostages inside the dollhouse. 

His hand moved through his hair before sliding back down onto his chest. There was a slight arch to his back, he couldn’t lay flat even on the leveled floor. His stomach rose and fell like a balloon being inflated, he couldn’t seem to steady his breath as he waited for the ceiling above to move, for the hand belonging to the eyes that watched him to reach in and just...squeeze. Shake him by the collar, electrifying his desiccated vocal chords. Suffocate him with table scraps and splash his face with water. Toy with him for a bit, giving him a purpose for this lifeless existence before putting the bottle back on the shelf. 

He didn’t mind, though. Feeling the pain of being a possession was better than feeling nothing at all. 

“Nicky, sweetheart?”

He was startled out of his latest dissociative nightmare by the giant, looming presence of his mother in the doorway, looking down at him. Studying her dormant son with a tight frown of concern, her eyebrows furrowed in the same puzzlement he would display as he studied corpses at crime scenes. 

“Would you like something to eat? I hope you didn’t take those pills on an empty stomach.”

“Uhm...yeah. F-food would be nice,” he nodded, propping himself up on his elbows. He expected that his mother would reach for him, pick him up and carry him to the kitchen in the cupped palms of her hands, stroking his back and hair while cooing about how cute he was at such a small size. This was the next part of the nightmare, the creepy overbearing comfort that made him feel as infantilized as he felt when his mother was around. He couldn’t help it, it had to be some sort of defense mechanism that he would just regress back to the little boy sitting on his bed, waiting for his mom to get home whenever things would get unbearable.

He hated it almost as much as he hated how he felt when she returned moments later with a plate, passing the threshold of the room to show that no, this wasn’t a nightmare, and yes, she was the same size as she had always been, not some sort of giant peeking into the dollhouse. He was also the full, appropriate size, even though everything around him seemed impossibly large, including the covered mattress he grabbed onto as he tried to sit up straight. He was so taken aback that he had nearly fallen on his back again, but quickly recovered and sat himself up against his bed, proceeding to pick at his food while his mother sat herself down next to him. He smiled wistfully as she groaned about her old age, falling into the familiar exchange of  _ “Oh, I’m so old!” “No, Mama, you’re only thirty,” “Oh, Nicky, you flatter me,”  _ that somehow diffused the tension more than the literal branch of olives in the makeshift salad that she had prepared for him. He was secretly grateful she didn’t make him a sandwich, though he assumed he didn’t have any bread left, anyway. Or his “favorite” dinner as she had promised him earlier. He didn’t deserve it. 

“Why were you on the floor, baby?” his mother asked once his eating became more regulated, stroking flattened bangs out of his face while he chewed. 

He shrugged, and honestly couldn’t think of an answer to give her, so he changed the subject.

“Greg still here?” he asked in a low voice.

“No, he didn’t want to impose, said he’d be back in the morning.”

“What time is it?” Nick muttered, craning his head to look at the window behind him. During the day, the blackout curtains would have an outer glow of yellow light from the sun. 

“It’s almost ten o’clock, you nearly slept the whole day away, hun,” his mother confirmed as he noticed that the glow was absent, in its stead, the black curtains bled into a puddled shadow. 

“Didn’t sleep much,” he admitted, only to plant the seeds of an excuse he intended to water later when he wanted to be left alone.

“Nicky,” his mother sighed. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulled him in for a side hug. “You should have said, I could have brought you some tea, or milk…”

Nick grunted in response. 

“The doctor did give you those sleeping pills.”

“No. Don’t want ‘em. Those,” he gestured a thumb to the bottle on the floor. “Did me in just fine, made me feel like I was high or somethin’.” 

“Because you ate them on an  _ empty stomach,”  _ his mother chastised him. “Remember how you’d feel when you took Dramamine without anything to eat?”

Long car rides spent melted into the leather seats of the Stokes family station wagon, unable to do anything but drool and wish he was dead. 

“I...well...yeah,” he couldn’t even argue against his mother’s point. He set down the empty plate next to him, feeling a little more normal now that he had  _ something  _ in his stomach other than existential dread. 

“I think you should try to get some real rest,  _ in your bed,”  _ his mother gently tickled him to entice a giggle before standing up, readying her hands to help Nick stand but he held up a hand to stop her from grabbing his arm. _ _

“Can...can we wash everything first?” Nick screwed up his face, bracing himself for the lie he was about to tell but it was better than the truth.

It was  _ always  _ better than the truth. 

“I, uh...sort of...wet the bed,” his face burned, heart sank, but his tell wasn’t revealed, and his mother bought it. 

“Aw, baby, of course we can wash everything. Do you have your spares laying around anywhere? I did buy you that set a few years ago…”

“Yeah, in my linen closet in the hall. I can--”

“Don’t you worry, sweetie. Mama will take care of everything,” his mother cupped a hand on his cheek before planting a kiss on his head, which made him feel a little better, but not enough to feel like spilling the literal beans swirling in his stomach as the guilt kept him glued to the ground while his mother undressed his bed.

“How long ago did this happen? I don’t see any wet spots…”

A chance to come clean...

“When I first shut myself in,” Nick deepened the thread of lies that he was spinning. 

Still easier than the truth. 

His mother would appreciate that.

She pulled a sympathetic look as she balled the blanket and sheet together, a soft  _ tch tch tch  _ as Nick hugged his good knee to his chest. 

“The--the pillowcase too? My...my head was itchin’...” Nick piped up before she left the room entirely. 

“Yes, baby.” 

“Thanks…” Nick sniffled. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, wondering if he would ever grow past the age of nine years old as he watched his mother fit the clean sheets onto his bed, lift him up and tuck him under the covers, plant a soft kiss on his forehead.

“Anything else you need?”

“M-maybe my laptop? Just...wanna check my e-mail or check the scores, t-take my mind off things?” 

She returned moments later with Nick’s latest mistake in judgement. 

“Don’t stay up too late,” she blew a kiss and closed the door, leaving Nick to open the laptop, log in with his password. He was surprised, and a little...suspicious of how the combination of letters and words hadn’t changed, forcing him to choose  _ her  _ preferred combination--the list he could imagine was longer than the silence he needed to fill while the computer buffered itself.

He flinched out of a conditioning rooted years in the past as the bright back-lit light bathed him in a harsh spotlight in the dimmed bedroom. Once his vision cleared, he saw that yes, Veronica had gone so far in her invasion of his privacy that he couldn’t even find a digital escape, and more than that, he was reminded, that he belonged to  _ her,  _ all with one picture that was plastered all over his desktop. 

A sensation he hadn’t felt since Veronica had dared to lay her hands on the man who he loved crept in and crashed down his fists on the keyboard, before he sent a balled fist towards the screen. Spider-web cracks fractured out of the impact, but he didn’t waste time to watch them. He scooped up the computer, wincing as the fan roared almost as loud as he did when he flung the device to the other side of the room, effectively shattering it, and his lungs along with it. 

His mother barged in just moments later, and his huffs of anger immediately dissolved into crocodile tears, a sensation of déjà vu sending him back into childhood once more—after all, he felt like just that, a toddler having a tantrum all because Veronica ruined his laptop. 

“What happened?”

“She-she’s everywhere…” he shuddered. His hands were shaking. “I can’t...I can’t escape…”

_ “Shh, shh, shh, shh _ ...it’s okay,” his mother climbed onto his bed, pulled him into her arms which just made him heave more. She pushed his head against her chest, held it down with a hand on top of his hair and used the other hand to stoke his back as she continued to murmur words of comfort. His fingers clung onto her shirt, he buried his face into her heart, the beat matching the throbbing of his head that gave him an odd sense of solidarity, that he was not alone as 

His mother began to hum as she rocked the melted pair back and forth, which truly made him feel like he was back at the ranch, being lulled into sleep. 

It was almost about to work, until she started singing lyrics under her breath.

_ “It was Christmas in Las Vegas, when the locals take the town…” _

“No,” Nick sobered instantly, his eyes snapped open, his breath lodged in his throat.

“Hmm?” Jillian lifted up his chin, wanting to stare her tear-stricken child in the eyes as he had  _ never  _ sounded so vehemently against a song before.

“Not...not that one. Please.”

“I thought it was your favorite song?”

Of course she would think that. Last time she had spent this much time taking care of her traumatized son, he had done nothing  _ but  _ sing that song, Nick’s only comfort in his green-lit penalty box, which had also served him during his fit of night terrors under his parent’s care. He would even turn it on the stereo when he felt the walls closing in, but it was a coping mechanism that had lasted for the fleeting time that his parents had stayed with him. By the time they had left after their failed attempt to bring him home with them, he had associated the song with a reminder of the man he used to be. He wasn’t the man in the box, not anymore.

Now he was just the man in the dollhouse.

“Not anymore,” Nick gulped, shutting his eyes and somehow  _ feeling  _ the green that was waiting in the darkness behind his eyelids. He shook the color away and the rest of his dignity with it. He ended the conversation there, and his mother’s tentative murmured words became the new song he parroted out of his weary lips. 

He fell asleep nuzzled into his mother’s arms, and woke up tangled in his blanket, bathed in the glow of the sun rise that usually indicated his shift’s end. The orange glow of the sun felt warmed the clammed cold of his skin as he inched his way towards the edge of his bed, reaching for the crutches that had been placed against the wall. He gently widened the space between his curtain and the wall to look out at the sun-soaked world outside the window. He could hear birds chirping, his ears perked as their communication translated to his mother and Greg politely chatting outside of his bedroom door. The silence that filled the air between the chirps and chatter was serene, and as he let out a sigh of relief, he felt the tension that had seized his shoulders flake off of his expanding body.

His mother had stayed. 

Greg came back. 

He was safe. 

He was  _ home.  _

It was going to be a good day. 


	21. Smothered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can't spell smother without mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updating the warning tags for this one as we now set sail on a plot thread I've been mentally spinning for a while now...aka..alcohol abuse.

He had to admit, at least Nigel Crane never touched the dollhouse. Merely a silent observer, satisfied with just admiring Nick go about his daily life, he never dared to interfere--though Nick supposed that would ruin the fantasy for the deranged man. Never dared to move the furniture just a few inches so that Nick would bump into it because he didn’t expect his sofa to be pulled out from the wall. He didn’t rearrange the books on Nick’s bookshelf so that it would take Nick extra time to find his guilty pleasure cheesy romance novel that he searched for in effort to distract himself while his mother prattled on about how he “let things go” around the house.

He’d rather let his mother believe that he had become a pig--no,  _ pigs are very clean animals, Nick-- _ that he had become the sleazy slob that imprinted a dent on the couch cushions from all of his sitting, then let her believe that Veronica had just a piece from the bottom of the tower that was his life and watched it all come crashing down.

And speaking of his mother, she wasn’t helping matters, either. Unknowingly undoing all of Veronica’s handiwork, she just made matters  _ worse.  _ Leaving Nick on the shelf instead of letting him roam about his own house, she was tidying up, putting things away, taking things out, all in the guise of helping him but to him...he felt like she was just  _ controlling  _ him. Dictating when he was to eat, sleep, take a bath. Giving him specific clothes to put on, even though he was quite satisfied with wearing his sweatpants and over-sized t-shirt.

His only freedom would come when Greg would come over, and allow Nick an escape even if it was to go to one of his therapies, physical or otherwise. And for the first few days, that had been enough. 

But Nick gazed at the house from the passenger’s seat, this time with a new level of dread as he saw the three giant observers--Nigel, Veronica, his mother--looming over the roof, gleeful smiles on their faces as their toy had returned home. The show was about to begin.

He wasn’t ready to go back in just yet. The weather wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. He was tired, just wanted to grab a beer and relax for the rest of the night, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Not with his mother still around. 

With Greg, though, maybe it would be.

“H-hey, G...Do you wanna...take a walk, before we go in?” Nick asked.

“You sure you’re up to it? You nearly crawled your way to the car--” Greg caught his words in his mouth, though Nick just shut his eyes and nodded. Without another word, Greg rounded the car and helped Nick out and they began a slow walk down the overcast street of Nick’s neighborhood, the only sound coming from the clanking of Nick’s crutches.

“She wants you to stay for dinner, by the way,” Nick broke the silence after a few steps.

“Man, by the time things go back to normal I’m gonna forget how to cook.”

_ Normal,  _ Nick thought to himself.  _ What even is “normal” anymore? _

“Ah, c’mon now, G, you know I can always cook ya up some grub, too,” Nick smiled. He wished he could playfully nudge his friend in the shoulder, but between the soreness of Greg’s appendage and Nick’s arms occupied by gripping the crutches that uncomfortably dug into his armpits, it was a lost cause.

Just like him.

“Aw,” Greg replied, but awkwardly left it there before he spoke again. “How is she, by the way? I didn’t want to say something earlier but, both of you seemed kind of happy to get a break from each other today.” 

“Can’t spell ‘smother’ without ‘mother,’” Nick huffs as his face expands in exertion. He dared to look back at the progress they had made from the driveway of his house. Though it wasn’t much, they were only halfway down the block, he felt like he had just ran a mile. He wanted to keep going, but he felt as if he were at the end of his leash. He turned around to start heading back, his head hung in reluctance.

“Have you tried telling her how you feel?” 

_ What are you, my therapist? _

“Have you tried telling  _ your  _ mom how you feel?” Nick scoffed.

“Fair.”

“Have...you talked to her?” Nick asked. “Your mom.”

“No,” Greg admitted with a sharp breath, his hands in his pockets. “Hey, maybe that’s something we can work on...together, you know?”

Nick looked up, his heart rising as his eyebrows did in piqued hope. 

“Yeah. Together.”

They made it back to Nick’s driveway, just barely--the knee on Nick’s bad leg had suddenly given out, Greg was acting as a third crutch when they heard the sound of a throat clearing. The sight of his mother standing with crossed arms, non verbally chastising him with her posture like the time he rolled into the driveway two hours past curfew just added to his frustration as he muttered curses of pain under his breath.

“Have a nice little stroll?” Jillian asked with pursed lips. “Isn’t what Pete does to you every other day enough?”

Pete, the physical therapist, had joined the shit-list of his mother’s least favorite people, and was the reason Greg would pick Nick up from therapy instead of his mother, who couldn’t stand to see 

It hurt his heart, he had to admit, being only able to imagine what it would be like to watch your own offspring suddenly forget how to walk after being taught at a very young age. Having their first steps after their rebirth be observed by a complete stranger. Watching them stumble and crumble and falter and fall and be snapped at every hand that reached out to help them.

But at the same time, he didn’t care. 

“I’m fine, Mom,” Nick insisted. “Working on my homework, was told I gotta get out more. Ain’t gonna get better if I’m just sittin’ around all day.”

Jillian lifted her head up and walked back into the house swiftly. 

“Maybe...turn it down a notch?” Greg whispered in suggestion.

_ Fuck off, Greg.  _

Nick just frowned in response. It didn’t matter, anyway, because when they crossed the threshold back into the house, it was like a reset button had been pushed. His mother was setting the small dining table with a smile on her face as she watched the pangs of hunger fall on Nick and Greg’s faces, all troubles forgotten in the lieu of delicious food. 

“Oh, that smells so good,” Nick closed his eyes and allowed the garlic scent to flare through his nostrils. And even better, no tomato sauce. No blood. Just carbs. 

“Yeah, it really does,” Greg agreed. “You are a  _ goddess,  _ Mrs. Stokes.” 

“Gregory, how many times do I have to tell you, please, call me Jillian.”

Nick smiled inwardly, knowing his mother secretly loved the politeness. 

“And glad you boys have your appetites, I’m afraid I’m still too used to cooking for a household of nine.” 

“Ooh, hey, I got a bottle of red wine somewhere in that cabinet above the fridge, it’d go really well with this.”

“Look who’s a wine connoisseur all of the sudden,” Greg winked playfully while Nick shrugged, serving himself before filling Greg’s plate out of habit. He blushed as Greg smiled at him with a slightly sarcastic mouthing of  _ oh, what a gentleman.  _ Nick’s heart couldn’t help but slosh like the red liquid that swirled in the glass in front of him, he couldn’t believe that he had ever thought that this was anything less than what it was,  _ a family,  _ having dinner together. 

He took a sip from the glass, initially wincing at the bitter tang, but after a few bites from his plate--goodness, he was hungrier than he thought, his plate was already half empty--he found himself drinking more, and more, feeling an odd sort of...bubbly sensation. No, not even bubbly, as the bubbles simmered away almost immediately, fleeting but lingering, he finally found a word to describe the warmth that radiated through his flushed face, the loose feeling in his body that kept him from moving and for once that was okay, because he was  _ relaxed.  _

“Is it really a good idea for you to be drinking, Nicholas?” his mother chimed without looking up from her plate, though her face was painted in such a way to indicate that she was just  _ begging  _ for Nick to say something.

Instead, Nick just emptied the glass and poured another. 

She wasn’t going to ruin this moment.

“This is really delicious,” Greg spoke up as he read the room. 

“Why thank you, Greg. I figured it would be nice for us to have a little treat, I know Nick is trying to watch his weight.”

“I am?” Nick snorted. “News to me.”

“Nothing wrong with indulging,” Greg shrugged. “Nick’s the biggest fan of eating out of all of us at the lab.”

“Oh, he is?”

Nick waved it off with his hand as he took another sip from his glass, ignoring the forced smile on his mother’s face. He allowed himself to instead listen to memories of fancy dinners spent with the team on special occasions--the last time he drank wine, in fact, was in a celebration of Warrick’s divorce. 

“ _ Fuck her, man, she didn’t deserve ya!”  _

A celebration of failure, giving Warrick some much needed reassurances, because he was in fact better off without Tina anyway. Warrick loudly professed how Nick was the best friend he ever had, the most supportive. A drunken love fest shared between two best friends.

They may have kissed. He doesn’t quite remember. The night was mostly a blur.

As he watched Greg get increasingly annoyed, evident by his tone which he had only ever used on Nick in the rare moments where he had gotten under  _ Greg’s  _ skin with an invasion of personal space, he couldn’t help but wonder if he could goad Greg into a similar night of shenanigans. 

He poured some wine into Greg’s glass, not realizing Greg hadn’t even touched it since they sat down. Nick sank back into his own drink, even Greg didn’t want to play. 

He wished Warrick was here to validate him in his severance from the woman that Nick was effectively divorced from, too. What was her name? Oh,  _ Veronica-- _ Greg had dared to utter her name in his back and forth with Jillian, which seemed like it was escalating as Nick pulled himself out of the glass pool he was swimming in for a moment, to listen in to the giants’ conversation.

He suddenly straightened himself in his seat, hiding the fact that he may have pulled one of the stitches in his leg in the haste, and instead gripped the edges of the table that had wobbled in the commotion. 

“I don’t think this lazing around is necessarily good,” Jillian was saying, which was shocking enough to Nick that he dared to think he had sobered up.

He poured another glass, and contemplated taking the bursting volcano that was Greg’s overfilled glass, too.

“Hard to do much else right now, anyway,” Nick muttered under his breath.

“And you know, Nick could really use a little more exercise, maybe that will help with the  _ stress,”  _ Jillian’s voice lowered to a whisper towards Greg.

“Yeah, which is why we went for a walk--” Nick began to explain in a matter-of-fact tone, before Greg cut him off.

“I think Nick is doing just fine, actually, all things considering,” Greg piped up.

“I’m right here, you know,” Nick snarled.

“I was thinking about getting some new curtains for the living room,” his mother continued, completely ignoring his comment and changing the subject.

“I don’t need new curtains, those are just fine.”

“Yes, but if we repaint the room to say, a soothing green--”

“No green,” Nick shot down. “It’s a stupid color.”

“It  _ used  _ to be your favorite.”

“Well, it’s not anymore so just drop it, okay?” 

“What has gotten into you?”

“Me? What’s gotten into  _ you?”  _

“Nick, this isn’t what I mean when--” Greg began in a warning tone, but Jillian held up a hand to silence him.

“No, it’s fine, Greg, tell me, child, what’s on your mind?”

“That’s it exactly, Ma, you’re treating me like-like a child! This is  _ my  _ house, and I’m the adult who  _ owns  _ it.”

The glass of red wine shook with laughter for making such a comment. He responds by wrapping his shaking fingers around it, bringing the glass to his lips and taking a sip as his mother began her rebuttal. 

“Is this just because I made a few suggestions as to how you could redecorate? Because I know as well as you do, that you can’t afford to move out, and after that... _ monster  _ lived in this house for two weeks, I  _ know  _ that’s what you want to do--that’s why you moved last time, even though you  _ never told your father and I--” _

“Oh, here we go with  _ that  _ again. Yes, please, yell at me for not wanting to tell my parents about how their youngest child was stalked and thrown out of a window--”

“First of all, young man, I am  _ not  _ yelling,” Jillian’s voice rose as she wagged a finger in the air. “Second of all, your father and I could have handled the truth about that--”

Nick snorted into his wine glass as he took another long sip before he spoke again. 

“Nah, you couldn’t’ve. Y’all even tried to drag my ass back to Texas when I told ya about the Hendler incident.” 

“Yes, but...not…” 

“No, go on, say it. You didn’t think I could handle it,” Nick pointed a finger at his mother, releasing the invisible leash that kept him tethered to the table. He rose up from his seat, making sure to hide the stain on his cast with the purposeful spilling of wine. He couldn’t stand completely straight, though, as he had to lean on his good leg, plant a hand on the table cloth for leverage.

“That’s not at all--” 

“What you were thinking? Course it was. The baby of the family who’d cry just ‘cause he tripped and scraped his knee playing the backyard. The softie who couldn’t go big game hunting with the boys. And-and that’s all I’ll ever be to you, isn’t it? The little boy who needs to be taken care of. Not helped.  _ Cared for.  _ Controlled. Dressed up a-and told where to go, what to do, and...I can’t. I just...I’m not... _ that  _ anymore.”

_ I’m not some doll for you to cherish.  _

An odd sentiment for him to have floating in his head, but he blamed it on the alcohol that radiated his cheeks, paired with early childhood memories he didn’t even know would come back to him, of being dressed up in cutesy outfits and shown off to his mother’s friends.  _ “Ain’t he as cute as a doll?” _ He could just  _ vomit.  _

He took another sip from the glass while his mother drummed fingers of one hand on the table, her other covering her lips as she contemplated her next move. 

“Tell us how you really feel,” Greg tried to cut through the tension after a moment too long of silence. A tasteless comment, but even Nick had to smile humorlessly in admiration for the man’s attempt. 

“Yes, Nicholas, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?” his mother crossed her arms expectantly for Nick’s next outburst. “Or would you like to be excused from the table?”

Now he  _ really  _ felt like he was a child at the dinner table again. 

“I think it’s time for you to go back to Texas!” Nick blurted out, slamming his glass down on the table so quickly and with such a force that it almost shattered. Jillian didn’t react to it, seemingly, at least. Pursed her lips and raised her chin before she cleared her throat. She set down her silverware, straightened her sleeves. 

“Well...if I do, who is going to help you until that leg of yours heals up? Because even your stubborn little ass has to admit, you can’t do  _ everything  _ on your own,  _ sweetheart.”  _

It broke Nick’s heart to hear Veronica’s words coming out of his own mother’s mouth.

Without another word, Jillian got up and excused herself from the table, leaving Nick and Greg to exchange looks and wordlessly communicate through the air that hadn’t quite settled in the room.

Nick dropped back down into his seat, took a deep breath and downed the rest of his glass, and then Greg’s, in one go.

* * *

“Greg!” 

Nick’s head was tilted back, his face resigned as his lips closed into a frown. He felt the cold shower water slam against his chest, bullets of water hitting a wall over and over and over, each impact harder than the last.

If he kept his eyes closed, he was back in the shelter, being hosed down with a high-pressure stream of boiling water. Some patches of his skin were still discolored from the welting.

If he kept his eyes open, water would fall into them and they’d be forcibly shut anyway. The spray of the water was wider from the height he was at, having to grip the edges on the stool he was seated on to keep himself from slipping and falling.

He could turn around, let his back take the slaughter, but his spine was already arched in enough pain as it was.

He raised his voice louder.

“Greg! I’m  _ done!”  _

It could have been mere seconds, or minutes, or hell, even hours before Nick’s patience wore thin once more.

“GREG!” he roared, though it was less of a scream and more of a whimper, his voice cracked and his head fell forward, a shuddering breath spilling down the drain. 

“Nick! You alright?” Greg rushed in moments later.

“I-I’m done,” Nick panted. “Can you please get me out?”

“Yeah, of course,” Greg handed him a towel as he shut off the water. Nick’s sigh in relief turned into a groan as Greg hooked his arms under Nick’s armpits. 

“Ready? On three, one...two...three…” Greg pulled him up, and Nick’s good leg danced, searching for the edge of the tub and lifting his foot over it, though the wet flesh slipped on the water that had spilled out onto the floor in the absence of a shower curtain--he floundered in Greg’s arms, Greg lost his grip, and they both crashed to the floor as Nick howled in pain, his thigh feeling as if it had torn apart. 

“You okay?” Greg wheezed, instantly getting to his feet and hovering over Nick as he rolled over in pain, his ears taut from the squelching of his wet, bare flesh against the drier, cold tile of the floor as he started to move forward in a slither. 

“I’m fine, I can get up,” Nick hissed. “I’m good, man, just go.”

“Would have been easier if you had a shower stall…” Greg muttered, more to himself as he leaned against the wall outside of the bathroom. Nick knew he wouldn’t follow his command to fully leave.

“Yeah, well, the tub contains the flooding water a bit better,” Nick seethed as he rose to his knees. His back arched, he grit his teeth as he lifted his head up to look at the giant man in the hallway, who had crossed his arms as he watched Nick insist on getting out of the room on his own.

“Looking for these?” Greg quipped, pulling the crutches out beside him. Nick swallowed his pride and nodded woefully, daring to take a crawl-step towards Greg before his head fell onto his forearms connected to the shaking fists that pound on the floor. 

“It’s okay, I got you,” Greg told him, lifting Nick up as he heaved in frustration.

“What good is all that damn rehab if I still can’t cross a door without crawlin’?” Nick groaned as Greg helped him to lean on the counter, and then helped him re-dress. 

“I think it might be more of a mental than physical thing, you know? I know there’s a term for it, but it’s like that negative association you get with something--” Greg pulled up Nick’s pants around his waist, pausing his speech for a moment before he spoke in a low voice, “I can’t drink anything that I don’t pour myself.”

“I just...it feels like if I go through that door without...without being on all fours...my body’s gonna convulse,” is what Nick would say, if he were being honest and if he was a better person, able to share his trauma with the man he himself played a part in traumatizing. 

“I’m sorry, Greg,” is what he said instead, and Greg playfully pat the sides of his waist.

“Sorry, what’re you sorry for? So what if you’re taking a bit longer to heal up? You’ve been through a lot.”

“Been a long day,” he agreed, avoiding his reflection in the mirror as he watched Greg rise to his full height behind him. 

“Why don’t we go sit on the couch for a while, watch some discovery channel or something?” 

Nick nodded and Greg helped him into the living room, though before Nick could protest and ask to sit down in his armchair a few feet away, his body sunk into the most occupied piece of furniture since his return home, the doll was done being toyed with and left for dormancy.

Greg even took care to position Nick so that he wouldn’t slouch over, his hands grounding Nick’s shoulders, pushing him into the cushions. Nick had to admit, it was slightly comfortable, he felt his body sizzle, melt into the fabric. His body was shutting down, the cramping in his muscles from all the work it took to get him here was fading into numbness. His eyes were closed.

Or so he thought, because dreamland certainly looked a lot like his living room. 

“I’m going to make you something to eat, you haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Greg’s hands pulled away, and Nick suddenly felt alone, cold. He wanted to reach out, pull Greg back onto him, entice him to stay but his body...felt...frozen. His eyes rolled in all directions, taking in the locked view he was trapped in, watched Greg prepare food for him in the small window to the kitchen.

Greg returned moments later, set the plate onto Nick’s lap before he took his position in the armchair a few feet away. 

Nick just continued to stare at him, which Greg only seemed to notice after a few minutes of watching an episode of Mythbusters, doing a double take as he noticed the drool rolling out of Nick’s lips. 

He pulled the chair over in front of the couch, wiped Nick’s face with his thumb before wiping his hand on the napkin he had brought for Nick. He lifted up the sandwich, waving it in front of Nick’s face. Pushed it against his mouth with a teasing gleam in his eyes, the poor guy probably thought they were playing a game. But his eyebrows knitted when Nick’s lips didn’t budge.

“Nick, buddy, you gotta eat something,” Greg sighed. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t get up. Couldn’t move a finger. Truth be told, his unresponsiveness infuriated him as much as it annoyed Greg but he just..couldn’t help it. Couldn’t get past it. 

“Come onnnnnn, Nick,” Greg goaded as he pulled down Nick’s chin with his thumb. He winced as he used the same coaxing tone that would be used to feed a small child, and any other circumstance, this would have been the final straw to break Nick’s back and get him out of this dissociative haze. “Open up for the airplane…”

_ “Easy way, or hard way,”  _ Veronica’s voice masked over Greg’s. Nick wanted to scream, but he couldn’t even flinch as Greg inserted the torn off fraction of the sandwich into his mouth, and pushed his chin up and down to entice Nick into chewing. 

Instead, Nick choked on the mess of ham, lettuce, cheese and  _ bread  _ that was being shoved past his teeth. Nick used his tongue to push against it before it reached the back of his mouth. The wet wad of un-chewed food fell unceremoniously onto his lap, a stream of drool slid down his chin. He heard a sigh, long and exasperated, one that started out masculine...but then turned feminine. His wide, wandering eyes locked onto the figure in front of him. 

Greg turned into Veronica. Veronica turned into Greg.

Greg picked up another piece of sandwich, a corner piece. All Nick saw was the bread crust, held by Veronica, who jammed it into his mouth. 

“Nuhhhhhhhhh,” Nick moaned, and his arms melted from their stone casing, he brought them up, grabbed Greg’s arms--his grip unfortunately a little tighter around the still bandaged arm, which only registered to Nick as he watched Greg--then Veronica--then Greg’s face screw up into a vortex of pain.

“Ah--fuck! Nick!” Greg shouted, and his howl broke Nick from his spell. He suddenly felt the rest of his body break away from paralysis, let go instantly, his arms fell to his thighs--his left thigh throbbed at him in response. He spat out the food and exchanged it for the air he was robbed of in the past few minutes, hyperventilating with such ferocity as if he had just surfaced from drowning.

“I’m-sorry-G,” Nick breathed quickly. Water was teasing the corners of both men’s eyes. “I’m...sor...sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Greg winced, placing his hand on his shoulder and shrinking into himself. 

“It’s not,” Nick huffed. He reached a hand out, but Greg pulled away. “It’s not okay, I shouldn’t have done that--”

“Yeah, well, guess I shouldn’t have tried to shove food down your throat, but you haven’t eaten all day a-and...hey, are you okay, man? It’s like you fell asleep with your eyes open or something.”

“Sleep paralysis, I think.”

“Like you got after the Jekyll thing?” 

Nick nodded reluctantly.

“I thought the doctor gave you sleeping pills--”

“Last resort.”

“Well, if you need to get some shut eye, I’ll just leave you to it…”

“No,” Nick reached out, leaned forward and grabbed Greg’s wrist. “No, you can--you can stay, if ya want? I ain’t gonna  _ really  _ sleep and I probably do need to eat…”

Greg sighed with a nod, a sad smile spreading across his face.

“How about I at least make you something better to eat? I’m betting that sandwich doesn’t look so appetizing right now.”

“She...All she fed me was bread crusts,” Nick admitted with a hard gulp that went down his throat like a large stone, but oddly enough, it did make him feel better opening up to Greg like he hadn’t before.

Mostly because Greg didn’t dwell on it, so he didn’t have to either.

“Instant ramen it is, then. You want anything else?”

“A-a beer, maybe?”

“Nice try, Stone Cold, but I’m not tossing you a cold one until you get something real in your stomach,” Greg chuckled from the kitchen.

“Oh, so you’re finally admitting that your instant noodles ain’t real food?” Nick teased.

“Shut up,” Greg growled as he slammed the microwave door. While the noodles cooked he opened Nick’s fridge to examine its contents. “You think Fast Freddy’s is still open? You don’t have anything here that I have the skill to cook without burning.”

“I could do some cookin’, I may have a bum leg right now but I ain’t completely out of the game.”

“Nah, you should be taking it easy, Nicky,” Greg shook his head. “That rehab you’re going through is pretty intense.”

“Yeah, well, only intense cause I just wanna be able to walk before the end of the year. Can’t believe it’s almost December.”

“Time flies when you’re…” Greg wistfully sighed, letting the words trail off as he handed Nick the noodles with his gratitude. “Well, you know.”

“Yeah.”

Nick picked at the cup as it cooled down. Greg sat next to him, leaning his head against the elbow propped on the side of Nick’s couch. 

“You enjoying the show?” Nick mused through his chewing as he caught Greg staring at him. 

“I am, actually. It’s good to see you eat. And  _ enjoy  _ it.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’m particularly  _ enjoying  _ these noodles, they ain’t like the ones Mom made the other day....”

“You ever give her a call? After we dropped her off at the airport?” Greg asked after a few moments’ silence.

“Not yet,” Nick sighed. “I do...feel bad.”

“I know.”

“It had to be done, though.”

“I know.”

A pause, as Nick set the empty container down on the side table.

“If I ever...get that way...you’ll tell me, right?” Greg asked Nick when he re-settled himself. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m...you know.”

“I will. And you won’t. I trust ya, G. I just...I wish I could take care of  _ you.”  _

“Me? I’m fine. Peachy.”

“But...you were…”

_ Damaged. _

_ Broken. _

_ Smothered. _

_ By me. _

“Not as much as you,” Greg tore his eyes away from Nick, looking down and brushing the bread crumbs off of Nick’s hoodie.

“It’s not a contest, Greg,” Nick whispered. He tilted Greg’s head up with his finger beneath Greg’s chin. 

Out of instinct, the finger then motioned up his cheek, through his hair, before his hand cupped the back of his head. 

It felt like before.

When they were both happy.

Together.

Nick took the risk. He leaned in closer to Greg, the tips of their noses brushed against each other, even though there was a part of him warning him,  _ pleading  _ to him,  _ no, not yet, we’re both still broken, the glue between the pieces haven’t dried-- _

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Greg said softly, gently pushing Nick away with his fingers on his chest. “You gotta walk before you can run, babe.”

Nick ducked his head, licked his lips. Message received. 

“Sorry, I didn’t...I thought…” Nick mumbled, scratching behind his head. He felt his ears burn, how could he be so stupid to think that Greg would want him like  _ that _ again?

“It’s okay. I-I want to, too, really, I do…” Greg stammered. “I just...just need something from you first.”

“Anything,” Nick replied instantly. His hands reached for Greg’s, who accepted them in his own, a sad but warm smile illuminating his face in the moonlight. His ears were burning too, his eyes shining with something, regret, perhaps? As if what he knew was going to be a hard hit on Nick, and Nick would admit that it would have been less painful if he had just slapped him in the face. 

“I think we should go to couples therapy.”


	22. We Can Never Go Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Greg begin couples therapy.

“Hey, Nick, you awake? We gotta get going.”

Greg’s knuckles gently rapt on the door to Nick’s bedroom, and behind the wooden door he could hear faint...groans? Sobs? Something in between, perhaps.

“Nick?” he called again, and the noises came to an abrupt halt.

“Yeah, G, gimme a minute!” Nick shouted gruffly. 

Greg lips tightened to a frown. Nick’s words had a slight...slur to them. Accentuated by the clanking of glass against what he assumed was Nick’s nightstand as he heard a thump--Nick rolling off of the bed onto the floor. 

The commotion paused as he heard the door handle twist...then retract. Twist, then retract. Muttered curses. Twist. Retract.

With his eyebrows knitted in confusion, Greg opened the door handle himself, gently nudging the door open though it still ended up impacting on something near Greg’s knees, followed by another string of angered mutters from Nick. 

The door eventually revealed that Nick was on his own knees, one hand gripping the door that he was pulling open, the other hand used to keep himself steady. 

His head was hung, Greg couldn’t see his expression but could feel the shame radiating from the sweaty stench of his already blotch-stained armpits. 

He was speechless--both of them were, and Greg remained motionless as he waited for Nick to grip the door frame, a strangled sound escaped the man’s lips in his submissive state before he found the strength in himself to tentatively rise to his knees--which were wobbling, his balance faltered, Greg reached a hand out to snake under Nick’s arm, help him up--

“I can do this,” Nick hissed. Though Greg knew the bark was more meant for Nick himself, he can’t help but feel the sting of the bite behind Nick’s icy words. 

Nick rose to his feet, and stumbled out of the room, still gripping onto the door frame. Once both feet were in the hall, he took a deep breath, hunched over on his knees while blindly reaching for his crutches before he nodded to Greg that it was time to move on. Greg nodded in returning, and led the way out of the house, uncomfortably fiddling with his keys while Nick acted like nothing had just happened, falling back into the facade he had seen him put on with visiting friends and family. 

It was just as scary as it was heartbreaking, and even though Greg had a pretty good idea of what was going on in Nick’s head...he just wished he would actually  _ tell  _ him. Then he might be able to offer the words he so desperately needed. 

Even if he needed that same reassurance, too. 

* * *

“So, how did you two meet?”

Greg looked to Nick, whose eyes were still locked on the therapist, flickering every so often up at the clock. There was no teasing of his tongue, even nervously. His hyper-focus produced hardly any blinks. Limited movements, he was gripping the edges of the armchair so tightly his knuckles were white. 

He definitely wasn’t going to be the lead in this interrogation.

Which was a harsh descriptor, the therapist had said it herself, this session was purely a “get to know you” session. A warm up. Not meant to be tense in the slightest, none of this was. 

Yet Greg could sense the nervous energy glowing around Nick.

“About thirteen years ago, we met at work. Both of us started around the same time, actually.” 

“And what is it you two do?”

“Crime scene investigators. Well--I started in the lab, didn’t move to the field until I had a few years on the job.”

“And when did you two begin your relationship? 

“About...six?” Greg looked to Nick, who nodded curtly. “Six years. We, uhm...decided to take a break for a bit within the last one though.” 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. But we want to try and...become...intimate again,” Greg’s eyes flickered to Nick who flinched and broke his eye contact, his eyes redirected to the floor. “And this...was my idea for that.” 

“Why do you feel that you both needed this, Greg?” 

“Because...last time things were just…” Greg trailed off.

Nick breathed in a humorless chuckle. 

“Cause I was being stupid. You can say it,” Nick crossed his arms, Greg’s mouth gaped open.

“That’s not--I didn’t say that--”

“No, I was being stupid. Ruined our relationship. It’s alright, G. It’s my fault.” 

“Nick--”

Greg was silenced at the rising of the therapist’s hand. 

“Nick...you have been rather...quiet,” she noted. 

Something flashed over Nick, and the ice was melted, his lips twitched into the same forceful, uncomfortable smile Greg had seen him use when having to talk to somebody he really didn’t like. He lifted his eyes off the floor to meet the therapist’s. 

“Didn’t get much sleep last night,” Nick quipped, before pursing his lips again.

“Judging by the shadows under your eyes...I presume you don’t get sleep most nights?”

Nick grunted, a short silence hung in the air before Greg cut through it.

“He doesn’t believe in therapy.” 

“Greg!” 

“It’s true, you don’t think it works--”

“Yeah, not for  _ me,  _ but I never said--”

“Nick, if you don’t believe that therapy works...then what are you doing here?” 

“Well, cause...I…” Nick took a slow, deep breath. “Because I want... _ us  _ to get better...and this was Greg’s solution.”

“What would be your solution?”

“I don’t know...just... _ doing _ it?” Nick blurted.

Greg grimaced. 

“But...I-I recognize that’s not...the best idea right now.”

“Because of your broken leg?” The therapist asked, and both men had wondered when the topic would finally arise. 

“That’s part of it, yeah,” Nick wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Got a final follow up on it this week, though, I can walk across the room just fine without a crutch.”

_ Just not out of the room,  _ Greg thought to himself bitterly, as Nick’s hand had fallen in gesture towards Greg himself. Whether he intended that to signify that Greg was his crutch or not, Greg couldn’t help the hurt in seeing Nick trying so hard to keep up this nonplussed appearance when he knew, deep down, he was having a panic attack. 

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Got shot. Actually got an appointment with the other shrink about that tomorrow,” Nick tried to laugh off, he looked to Greg for a shared smile but his face was cold. 

“While on duty?”

Nick inhaled through flaring nostrils.

“No.”

The therapist’s head tilted upwards. 

“Are you comfortable discussing what happened? Or the feelings surrounding it?”

“You know, that--that’s the thing. I just...I can’t sit here and talk about my feelings. Doesn’t work for me.” 

“Why do you think that?” 

Nick shrugged.

“Hard to move on from it if you keep having to talk about it all the time.” 

“And does that mean you don’t talk about your feelings to Greg?”

“Well, I try, and he just...doesn’t listen.”

“That’s not true, I do listen.” 

“So how come last time I tried to open up to you, you screamed at me--”

“--I didn’t  _ scream _ \--!” 

“--to go talk to, to a complete  _ stranger  _ about how I feel--no offence, ma’am--” 

“Oh, so now it’s  _ my  _ fault?” 

“Gentlemen…” the therapist’s voice rose above the two bickering men, holding another hand for silence, but while Greg simmered down, Nick came to a boil--which the therapist picked up on, “Nick, why don’t you take a deep breath.”

Nick took a forcefully loud, obnoxious breath, more of a disgruntled huff than anything. 

“Again.”

Greg almost wanted to laugh at Nick’s stubbornness, if his heart wasn’t racing in annoyance.

“One final time.”

The final breath was the closest in resemblance to an actual relaxing exchange of air, and Greg even saw Nick loosen his grip on the arm rest…

Only to slide his hand through the cast on his thigh.

He began to wince.

“Got an itch?” the therapist asked, seeing the same sight, and even without the context, could tell it was not healthy. 

“Itch...yeah…” Nick muttered over even quieter words, but they weren’t being spoken, they were being sung. 

“Are you...singing?”

“What? Oh...I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you can, if that helps you.”

Nick rolled his lips into his mouth and kept them tightly sealed, finding new focus on the plant on the other side of the room. 

“See, this is what he does, he just...shuts down,” Greg muttered, waving a hand in the air in a gesture at his partner before he rested his chin on his fist. “When it gets too the things that  _ really _ matter.”

Nick glared at Greg. 

“Oh, are you done having your little tantrum?” Greg sneered as Nick held his gaze, but his eyes had drifted towards Greg’s arm, his pursed lips gaped open wordless motion. 

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” 

Nick’s mouth opened and closed, his eyebrows weaving in and out as his lower chin began to wobble fervently, his eyes watered. He was about to say something when he caught the words with a high pitched noise. He wiped a hand over his face before he spoke again, with shaking vocal chords.

“The, uh, last person that asked me that…” Nick cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders and shifted his gaze back to the therapist, a strained look on his face that screamed how each word was painfully dragged up through his throat. “Locked me in a cage and put a collar on me.”

* * *

The session had gone a little more intense than either man had anticipated, or wanted at all. 

Greg felt only slightly guilty for that, yet on some level he had expected it wasn’t going to be easy, even if Nick had agreed to the joint sessions with no uprising. While he had hoped that the topic of their trauma wouldn’t get brought up right away, it was bound to happen and therefore forcibly open the door that Nick had been working so hard to keep himself locked behind.

And not only that, but he couldn’t help but feel as if Nick had almost forgotten that their trauma was a shared one, even if he was only there for a fraction of it.

Then again...Nick was the one who didn’t seem to remember a fraction of that fraction, and the real reason he wanted them to seek a counselor in the first place.

“Well that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Greg tried to ease the tension two minutes into the ride. Nick had turned off the radio when some Johnny Cash song came on, and didn’t seem to be in the mood for Greg’s punk rock, either.

So the dulcet tune of uncomfortable silence would just have to do. 

Nick grunted, his head turned away from the driver. He had settled against the passenger’s side door, one hand settled on top of the seat belt buckle, the other wrapped around the “oh shit” handle in a white-knuckled grip. Greg risked a glance in his direction to try and get a read on his face while also keeping his eyes on the road ahead, knowing that Nick didn’t necessarily consider him a bad enough driver to prepare to yeet himself out of the car at the first sight of trouble, leading him to believe the issue was more of the interpersonal nature.

He looked through the rear-view mirror, into the past of the long, winding road that they had driven through to this point. He had to do a double take, seeing ghosts of their former selves rolling in laughter in the back seat over nothing in particular, their shoulders smashed up against each other, their faces flushed from smiling so hard. 

He was suddenly very hungry, both his stomach and his heart growled at him. He thought about turning around, driving back towards their favorite diner, but just as soon as his eyes returned to the road ahead, the ghosts in the backseat disappeared and he realized it was a lost cause.

“What are you thinking for dinner?” he asked his partner, since his option had long since been passed.

They reached a stoplight, and just as the car itself reached an impasse, so did the conversation. Greg’s question remained unanswered and Nick remained seemingly inattentive. This time, he didn’t bother looking towards Nick even though this would have been the best opportunity to do so. Instead his eyes locked onto the red light, his fingers wrapping tighter around the steering wheel, his nails digging in and out in anxious dread for the light to turn green and indicate that he can keep going.

“Maybe we should drive there...in separate cars, ya know? Already get enough of each other in there, and might give us some more time to...reflect after?” Nick suggested in a ragged voice as the driving resumed. 

“Oh. Okay.”

Greg blinked, he resisted the urge to glance as they once again reached a stoplight, but instead of leaning forward in anticipation, he leaned backwards into the seat in some sort of defeat. By the time the light turned green, he decided to break the silence with the caboose on the train of thought he had ridden in his daydream. 

“How are you gonna do that with your fucked up leg?” Greg asked, a bit more harshly than he intended.

Or rather, fully intended. Nick was being unnecessarily difficult, after all. Could have spoken up a lot sooner. Could have just told Greg he wasn’t up for talking. Didn’t have to be a passive aggressive dick about it.

“I’ll manage,” Nick sneered, sniffling through his expanded nostrils. 

The conversation ended there, and the rest of the fifteen minute car ride was spent with both men staring at the speeding road ahead of them. 

No looking back.

* * *

“See, knew it. Knew this was a bad idea.”

Greg’s leg bounced impatiently as he stared at the door. Nick was one minute late to their session. 

He was  _ never  _ late to anything. Ever. 

“Perhaps he got stuck in traffic,” the therapist suggested. 

“Traffic, yeah. That’ll be his excuse.” Greg snorted. He threw on his imitation of Nick’s accent, “‘By the time I could get here, session woulda been over.’”

“Has this happened before?”

“No,” Greg admitted with a sigh. “But that’s just what I imagine he’ll say since he can’t use getting called into work as an excuse.”

“Do you feel he often uses work as an excuse to get away from you?”

“No, not--not necessarily. I mean, he’s got a much stronger work ethic than I do, more seniority, he’s called in more than I am…”

“Does that make you feel inferior to him?”

“Nah, I mean, he was actually assistant supervisor for two years.”

“Were you two in a relationship during that time?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you think it had a negative impact?”

“...No,” Greg answered after a long minute. “But during that time...that’s when we decided to take a break for a bit.”

“We never did get to elaborate in the last session--and that was after Nick had first encountered Veronica?”

Greg flinched at the name.

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

“We established that therapy was your idea, but who’s idea was it to take a break?”

“Mine.”

“How come?”

“Nick just...he wasn’t acting right.”

“After his abduction?”

He thought back to that night, to the way Nick had gotten rough in puppeteering Greg’s limbs, how he ravaged every inch of Greg’s body, how there was a passion, sure, but it was fueled by rage instead of love, he could hear it in the husk of his voice, the fire in his eyes,  _ possessive,  _ even--

“Yeah. I...I think...He just wasn’t in a good place and I didn’t think us...having a relationship of the...intimate kind was appropriate. Not-not forever, just...for a little bit.”

“And it seems like you’re still feeling the same way.” 

“Sort of, yeah.”

“Did you express this to Nick at the time of your ‘break-up?’” the therapist asked in air quotes.

“I-I tried, but that’s when he had taken it the wrong way, as he pointed out with my so-called ‘screaming’--I don’t...I don’t  _ scream.  _ He’s the one who has outbursts, not me.” 

The therapist lifted her chin as Greg had raised his voice. Greg sighed and fell back into his seat, realizing he was building up into the same fit of anger he had accused Nick of having.

“I just wanted to help him,” Greg muttered lowly under a humorless laugh. “But he doesn’t seem to want to help himself. Eve...Even in the cage...he just...did nothing.” 

“Were you two in the same cage?” The therapist asked. Greg looked up and she quickly put up a hand seeing the wild expression in his eyes. “We only have to go into as much detail as you want to, if you don’t feel comfortable--”

“No, it’s...it’s okay. We were in opposite cages. His was...left open at one point. And he didn’t realize it.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t see her lock it like she had locked mine. And well...she did...drug him so I guess he  _ couldn’t  _ have…”

“But it still upset you to see him in such a vulnerable state. Helpless, as you must have felt yourself.”

Greg gulped with a slight nod. 

“He was always stronger than me, you know? Physically a-and emotionally and so I guess...seeing him just...give into that  _ bitch  _ just kinda...hit a nerve.”

“An extreme torture as the one he endured is enough to make anybody crack under the pressure. 

“Guy like him? He’s a tough nut to crack.”

_ Don’t you dare, Sanders. Don’t you dare go oversharing details of Nick’s private life. That’s what got you in trouble in the first place. _

“Perhaps he had done it as a way to cope,” the therapist suggested. 

“Or to protect me…” 

Greg shut his eyes, imagined himself on the floor on his hands and knees, trembling, looking up at Nick as he was sitting on his legs, his eyes wide in terror, a shaking hand clutching a knife. Veronica towered behind him, a firm hand on his shoulder, a sinister smile spreading her lips apart.

_ “You do it, Nicky, or I will…”  _

He stroked his arm. 

“I should have...I should have seen it coming,” he whispered. “She used me. For information. On... _ him.”  _

“So who are you more mad at? Nick? Or yourself?”

Greg’s answer hung in the air as the door swung open, to expose a breathless Nick hobbling into the room. 

“Traffic,” he huffed, before plopping down and flashing a smile that faded as soon as he met Greg’s eyes. “Sorry I’m late.” 

Greg’s frown twitched up into a small smile, seeing the effort Nick had made displayed by the sweat stains on his shirt, the curvature in his eyebrows, the shining of his eyes that told him that the man he loved was still there, even if he had momentarily lost his way. 

Greg reached his hand out and touched Nick’s knee. 

“You’re right on time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you follow me on tumblr you may have seen a preview of a scene that wasn't in this chapter, that's cause it'll be in the next one--I split for pacing considerations and cause it's been a hot minute since I've updated lol


	23. Broken Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick goes on walk, Greg has a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I've cried while writing this fic. See if you can spot which line did me in.

Nick couldn’t have been happier that things were finally returning to normal.

Two crutches had become one, and in no time became none at all, a piece of news he was more than delighted to be able to relay during the weekly check in with his supervisor. He was to return to work after one final session with the department shrink before returning full time to active duty. 

But that would come tomorrow. Tonight was the time for him to enjoy the crisp night air on a walk around the block, without any sort of assist. All on his own. Nick Stokes, a man free of the collar and puppet strings that previously held him captive.

That was his first mistake.

Thinking he was a man at all.

There was something about taking that first step outside of the house, donned in a comfortable hooded sweatshirt and a pair of loose fitting gym shorts, his feet protected with a pair of socks and gym shoes that had fooled him into thinking that he was back to himself. He was able to pick out his own clothes. Able to go back to work in a few days and feel as if he had a purpose again. Able to make decisions like this walk that would do nothing but serve as part of his rehabilitatory exercise and perhaps clear his head a little from the fever he was developing by staying home all day. 

He took one step, then another. And another, and another until he was on the sidewalk. He kept moving on in no particular direction, just  _ away  _ and when he had finally turned back to check on his house, he saw that it was still standing in the distance, smaller than before--if he had reached out a hand, he could easily wrap around it and it was that odd sort of realization of escape from the previously large, towering structure that would lure him in and trap him that had cracked a smile on his face, and he continued forward, his steps becoming faster, longer, more fervent as a soft waft of wind blew against his face.

He saw a few birds flying in the air, some settled in the trees peppered throughout the neighborhood. He smiled as he saw that the world was still teeming with life, no signs of it having stopped and it gave him the hope that perhaps, he wouldn’t either. 

The air felt fresh, cool, but there was still some odd heated dryness to it. He looked up at the sky, a barrage of clouds was fast approaching but he didn’t fall for the trick. Nature’s attempt to push him back towards his house, which had become less of a home and more of a...shelter he was simply residing in. 

Veronica would come back and take him to his  _ real  _ home.

Nick’s breath hitched as the wind picked up. 

He dared a look back, having made no turns, his house was even smaller than before but even in its perceived size, he couldn’t help but hear the cry for him to return. He suddenly forgot if he had locked the door or not. What if it was being invaded again? 

He redirected his path, took a sharp left as he broke out into a light jog. 

It was stupid to think like that. He couldn’t live in fear for the rest of his life. He didn’t after Nigel--okay, well, sure, he had relocated after that incident but it didn’t even ease his bout of paranoia back then. He didn’t after Gordon--though he supposed he  _ did  _ look over his shoulder until everyone involved in the kidnapping had ceased existing. But that woman, Sage, who seemed to know more than he did about certain planes of existence had told him...he was doing a good job...

He needed to move on, and the only way to do that was to  _ move on.  _

He didn’t hear much other than the gentle waving of the leaves clinging onto the branches against the wind’s call. A dog barking here or there. His own breathing-- _ panting-- _ interwoven with the slap of his shoes against the concrete. A soft roll of thunder that caused him to make another turn, when it not only shook the air but the goosebumps on the back of his neck. 

He had almost forgotten about his home at this point. Almost forgotten about  _ her.  _ He allowed his thoughts to drift into a daydream about his first day back in the office, how everybody would be so happy to see him--at least, so he hoped. How he would flash his smile and appease their minds that he was okay, he anticipated that he wasn’t going to be one hundred percent ready, he never was, but in no time he’d be back to being Nick Stokes...Crime Stopper. 

He inwardly flinched but shook his head and the thought along with it, yet kept the principle behind it--the desire to help others again by seeking justice for victims and their families. Giving them the answers that he could never get himself. 

Nick made another turn before his mind kept running down  _ that  _ path, but even with the turn...it kept going, and he once again ignored nature’s plea as he was running against a cascade of water pellets that assaulted his face, getting caught in his eyelashes before rolling down his cheeks.

Why did this shit always happen to him? What sort of fucked up curse was put on a nine year old kid that soured the innocence and promise of a successful life that was instead tangled in a deep web of various degrees of suffering to the point where he had become numb to it all?

Well,  _ almost  _ numb, he argued, as a flash of lightning trailed off with another bout of thunder had distracted him from the crack in the ground that he tripped on, setting off a flare that slithered up his leg, tormenting his thigh as he rolled forward and landed on the ground on his hands and knees, his face narrowly missing a puddle that was more of a mirror.

He saw his face beaded with sweat and rain water, his eyes wide from the startlement of the fall but even that wasn’t as shocking as what else the reflection showed him.

A collar around his neck, his name written in oozing blood, the only way he even knew what his identity was at that point, besides the fact that he was  _ her’s.  _

His fingers clawed at the ground, one coiled fist smashed into the watery mirror as he got to his feet, and suddenly the booming thunder became more high pitched, feminine. Laughing at him. There was a splotch of red tainting the puddle that his leg had previously sunken into, and he saw that there was a stinging scrape on his kneecap.

_ “Aw, baby got a boo-boo?” _

His legs wobbled, couldn’t support himself, and fell back down to the wet sidewalk--no, not sidewalk, sidewalks aren’t grey and bloodstained. He was in the shelter’s hallway. On his knees. Naked, save for the collar constricting his neck. She stood so tall above him he couldn’t see her face without bending backwards. 

_ “If you would just crawl, then I wouldn’t have to keep dragging you like this, and you wouldn’t get hurt.” _

“Shut up,” he growled. He managed to stand up and began to swiftly walk back the way he came, because he knew there was only one way to stop her voice, and it was at the house. He pulled his hood up, shifting the collar of the sweatshirt up to cover the invisible collar around his neck.

_ “I’m beginning to think you just like the attention, don’t you, Nicky? Trust me, you don’t have to fight so hard for mine.” _

He ignored the voice as his spiteful walk bounced into another jog. He pulled the drawstrings of his sweatshirt, completely hiding his face from view though rain still slid off of his nose, his lips. He could feel the wet fabric of his shorts slap up against his thighs. 

_ “I’m always watching.” _

He wasn’t just running anymore, he was  _ sprinting,  _ even though his thigh trembled in warning, nerves in his leg begging him just as he begged her to  _ stop, stop, stop! _

Somehow he made it back to his house before a broken, exhausted sob escaped his trembling body. He knew he wouldn’t be safe for long, she wasn’t far behind. He fell to his knees as soon as the door shut behind him, and yet he still felt an invisible kick plunge him forward in a forced crawl.

_ “Pathetic. You can’t even crawl across the floor without me prodding you to do so. You’re so weak, my little broken bird.” _

He clawed at his carpet until his clammy palms slammed onto the cold kitchen tile. The water on his skin was drying, and he felt just as cold. His legs became unbendable icicles as he crawled across the hard surface that made him feel as if he were crawling back to the bird cage rather than to the sink, where he was able to reach up and stand on wobbling legs, quickly climbing to open the upper cabinets that stored his liquor. 

_ “I miss when you used to put up a fight.” _

He grabbed the first bottle he could find, didn’t even bother pouring a glass as he brought it to his lips and allowed the burning liquid to drown out the words, the whispers, the screams swirling in the strawberry cream of his brain. 

He slammed the bottle on the counter, and shut his eyes as a wave of nausea anchored him to the spot. He leaned into a propped elbow, holding his head in the palm of one hand. One shuddering breath later and he was able to suppress a sob when he realized it wouldn’t help him. He ran his hand up and over his forehead, knocking his hood back. He turned around, got a glass and poured a drink. 

He downed the glass in one attempt, a feat most certainly accomplished by his time practicing with his fraternity brothers, though the alcohol they drank back then was cheaper and weaker. This was top shelf quality, expensive and exquisite, a bottle he had gotten when he got his promotion to assistant supervisor...which didn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked. 

It was that train of thought that made him realize her voice had stopped. There was no sound in the kitchen save for his heavy, unsettled breathing, which had slowed to a calm.

His body felt as light as it did when it was running in the rain. Floating, even. The corners of his mouth curved into a goofy smile as he looked around  _ his  _ house. He was alone, truly, no friends but also no demons to play with him. 

He took another sip and staggered over to his couch. He fell back into the indented cushions, his body sinking but it wasn’t a  _ terrible  _ sinking sensation. It was comforting, because there was nobody watching. The blinds were closed. The doors were locked. No holes in the ceiling.

The dollhouse couldn’t be open, because it wasn’t a dollhouse at all, nor was he some sort of doll. He hadn’t shrunk, he was the same size he had always been. Five feet and eleven inches of a man stretched out across a couch that was under  _ his  _ possession, in  _ his  _ house. 

Nick finished his glass and closed his eyes, and part of him wished he wouldn’t wake up ever again if it meant losing this euphoric feeling.

This  _ safe  _ feeling.

* * *

“Do you have any questions before we begin your final evaluation?”

“Yeah, how’d I get so fucked up that I need not one but  _ two  _ therapists?”

“Two therapists?” 

“Greg and I are seeing...a couples therapist.”

“Oh. That’s very good. Couples therapy is not a bad thing to go to, Nick.” 

“I just...I didn’t think we... _ needed  _ it.”

“Even the strongest couples seek counsel. Really, when it comes down to it, it’s all about communication.” 

“So I’ve been told,” Nick muttered.

“Have you been open and honest to your partner about your trauma?”

Nick winced at the “t” word, and of course Omar knew how he felt about it, having gotten to know Nick much more than he would have cared for otherwise in the past few years. 

“No,” Nick admitted flatly. “Not...not entirely.”

“What stops you?”

“I guess it’s just...cause I want to protect him.”

_ From me. _

“You mentioned that he was there with you, briefly, at the shelter.”

Nick nodded.

“I couldn’t...I couldn’t help him. I was--”

_ Useless!  _ Veronica screamed.

Nick rolled his lips into his mouth, catching the word behind his teeth.

“I’ve tried to...to tell him I-I’m sorry but I just…”

“Why would you be sorry?” Omar challenged him.

“Cause I hurt him!” Nick cried. He didn’t bother to try and hide it anymore. “I’m ju-just as bad as her!”

“What did she make you do?” 

“She didn’t...didn’t make me do anything.”

_ His hand wrapped around a knife, Greg glued to the floor. A voice whispering in his ear, “you do it, or I will…” _

Back in the present time, Omar’s eyes narrowed.

“What did she tell you to make you think that?”

Nick rubbed his eyes and shook his head. 

“Nick, I want you to say it,” Omar sighed, sensing that Nick was rapidly shutting down.

“I-I can’t...” 

“You can, Nick. You can say it, I’m giving you permission. Say the mantra.”

Nick laughed humorlessly before he uncoiled his fists, wiped his moist face before gulping down the bile rising in his throat.

This was  _ stupid.  _

So fucking stupid.

He shouldn’t have to say it. 

Absolute bullshit.

Because it’s not true.

“My name is...Nick Stokes...and I--” his speech muted, as a breath got caught in his windpipe. He cleared his throat but it didn’t stop the cracking of his voice, “I am...a human being...I am not...not a toy.” 

“And?”

“And none of what happened...during my...my captivity...was  _ my fault.” _

“Okay. I want us to share a minute in silence before we continue with the screening, okay?” 

Nick nodded through a shaky breath, somehow feeling just as naked and humiliated as he did back in his cage, even though the only other pair of eyes in the room were focusing on a clock and averting meeting the shrinking man clenching the edge of his seat. 

He could really use a drink right now. 

“Three...two...one and... _ breathe,”  _ Omar finally set his eyes back on Nick, conducting their final breathing exercise as Nick silently vowed never to set an appointment with this man again. 

And yet part of him knew he wasn’t going to get away that easily. 

“Okay, so I see that you passed your fitness exam, good, good. How have you been sleeping lately?”

“Fine,” Nick pursed his lips with a shrug. “Been getting...around--”  _ One, if I’m lucky,  _ “--six hours every night. A little restless, but I’m used to it.”

“Good,” Omar nodded, jotting down notes on a clipboard. “Now, I know we’ve established you don’t smoke or use other recreational substances, but how many times a week do you have a drink?”

“Once or twice…”

_ A day. Or three...or four...or more... _

“...on the weekends, you know, to unwind.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” the therapist smiled. “Moderation is key.”

“Mm-hm,” Nick licked his lips.

“Have you been having any suicidal idealizations or thoughts?”

“Not at all,” he affirmed.

_ Does anybody ever answer that question honestly? _

“Let’s suppose that you are at a crime scene, and you see something that triggers you into a flashback. How would you handle it?” 

“Take a step back, use the, uhm, the...grounding method we talked about. Things I can see, hear, touch, smell, taste...and then if I...if I can’t, I’ll remove myself from the situation.”

“Have you been bogged down with feelings of impotence?”

_ Yes. _

“No.”

“Do you believe that you have a strong support system, or otherwise call a hotline if needed?”

_ No. _

“Yes.” 

Nick’s leg began to bounce, a tick that Omar picked up with a gentle smirk.

“You’re doing great,” Omar told him encouragingly.

Of course he was.

He knew all the answers to the test, even if they weren’t the ones he believed in. 

* * *

They met up at Frank’s diner for a late breakfast--perks of being regulars had meant that Frank was always willing to bend the lunch-time ordinance so that Nick could get his plate of cheap steak and eggs, even if he would be whining about a disturbed stomach in hours to come. 

But today, Nick was only picking at his runny eggs. Hardly touched the overcooked steak. Didn’t even swipe one of the strips of bacon on Greg’s plate. 

“How did your appointment go?”

“Good,” Nick shrugged. He avoided Greg’s eyes, instead glancing down at the burnt toast on a side plate. “Got cleared to come back on Monday.”

“That’s great! Everyone in the lab asks about you.” 

“I miss y’all too,” Nick smiled sadly. He stifled a yawn. “Already been trying to get myself back on the sleep schedule.”

Greg smiled back, and he pulled up his hand that was previously resting on his lap to reach towards Nick’s unoccupied hand set next to his plate. He placed his on top, and met Nick’s eyes. 

“I’m glad you’re doing better.”

Nick ducked after a nod. He gulped down a brave bite of his eggs, before his fork clattered against the plate. 

“Do you wanna...come over?” he asked Greg in a meek voice. “Spend the night--or rather, day, I guess? A-and we don’t gotta…” he somehow lowers his voice even lower than it already was. “We don’t gotta do... _ anything,  _ just wanta...sleep...next to you.”

“Yeah,” Greg nodded. “I’d like that.” 

Nick smiles, genuinely and takes another bite of food off his plate, which makes Greg’s smile spread even bigger. 

“So...how are  _ you  _ doing?” Nick as he chews, tearing the crusts off of the toast...and eating it.

* * *

“He...he asked me how I was doing and I didn’t know what to tell him.”

Greg’s thumbs rubbed his eyes, his vision blossoming in an explosion of inverted stars as he returned to his weekly meeting with his therapist. His focus directed to the steaming cup of coffee, feeling the heat underneath the tent of his folded hands. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was happy he even asked, but it seems like there’s still something...unresolved within him...and  _ us.”  _

He took a sip of the coffee, but the warmth was lost on him, the bitterness amplified. He pinched the bridge of his nose, he had a sudden headache, found himself very...weary.

Where did he even get this coffee from?

“Well, Greg, Nick certainly doesn’t talk about you  _ nearly  _ as much. I don’t think he cares about you as much as you hope he would.”

His heart sank to the bottom of the cup that dropped from his lips. 

That was not the voice of his therapist. 

He dared to look up, and found that he was sitting at a table for one...that was set on top of a ceramic plate. To his left, a metallic pillar with a sharp edge. A knife. To his right, a fork that was operated by the giant woman who giggled as he flailed when she picked him up by scooping the utensil under his shirt. 

She used the knife to swipe the miniature table and chair off of the plate, the scraping sound of the blade against the plate causing him to cup his hands against his ears and squeeze his face shut, unable to watch as she dropped him back onto the plate on his back. He instinctively curled as she continued to drag the fork around him, an orchestra of shrillness that came to a climax when she slammed her fists on the table. 

“Well, Greg, are you listening to  _ me  _ for a change?” Veronica shrieked, and suddenly, half of the fork was driven into his chest, effectively impaling him to the plate.

“Look at that, you and Nicky will match now,” she mused as she peeled Greg’s shirt off with the knife as he mouth gaped open in an inaudible scream. “Hmm...not as much muscle on you as there is on Nick. Makes you less juicy.”

Her head turned and she seemed to smile at something to the side of her full sized table, before she resumed her predatory gaze on Greg. She sliced open the remainder of his clothes, gently slicing his skin in the process. The blood soaked knife began to peel away until he was left on the cool, sticky plate. She didn’t even need to use the fork to keep him impaled, but rather used it for leverage as she began to saw his body parts--but not severing completely, leaving a few loose tendons of muscle around the broken bones.

This time, he did scream, as he lost control of one leg--then an arm--then his neck--and almost his heart, too, though she had long since run off with that.

“Enough playing with my food I suppose,” she groaned as Greg flailed with the limbs he still had control of. She lifted him up on the fork, carrying off of the plate and brought him to the edge of the table.

“Here, Nicky,” she beckoned in a sickly sweet, sing-song voice. “You can have the arm, since you’ve been such a good boy…”

Greg’s wild eyes managed to locate the source of her attention, a pet carrier, its door open and from it emerging, another small--yet bigger than him by a few inches, he reckoned--naked man with a collar, crawling on all fours and looking up.

“Anything for you, Veronica!” Nick cried out, and though Greg protested, she severed the final cord and his arm fell down, Nick caught it and began to chew on it ferociously, like a dog eating a bone--

“NICK, NOOOOOOOOOOO!” Greg hollered, though he could tell Nick took no enjoyment of the sort, he was  _ crying-- _

Greg’s eyes snapped open, but he could still hear the soft crying that followed him out of the nightmare, the sound of which kept him from leaping out of his skin, and instead in a paralyzing confusion as there was not a fork digging into his skin, but something less sharp that gripped him tightly.

“Nicky...you awake?” Greg whispered. 

Greg shifted his body, flipped over so that he was staring directly into Nick’s eyes. His heart heavy, the words were pulled out of him as slowly and painfully out of the burning hell swirling in the irises in Nick’s watering eyes.

“What are you feeling right now?” 

Nick sniffled, and Greg was already halfway through his inhale of a sigh that would lead them to the usual silence that came when Nick was being reclusive, when, to his surprise, was interrupted by Nick’s voice, low and hoarse, but clear as a bird singing a morning song to Greg’s ears. 

“I feel...small.”

Greg put a hand to Nick’s face, stroked his thumb under Nick’s watering eyes as Nick’s lower lip trembled. He cupped his other hand around Nick’s head, pulled him into an embrace that probably didn’t serve to make Nick feel his normal size, but figured it was better to be held by the hand of a loved one than the monster that had previously claimed him, the same one that loomed above them and threatened to tease them apart. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Greg whispered, the imagery of his own dreams lingered in the fog of his mind, as he imagined them not lying on a bed, but on a dinner plate ready to be served. “I do too.” 


	24. A Toast to the Merchandise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara reflects on Nick's return and watches as something goes wrong during a birthday party. Nick opens up a case that had since gone cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember chapter six? and nine??? because I do! (and so does Nick)

The atmosphere in the lab returned to a normal Sara hadn’t quite realized was missing. A sensation there wasn’t a word for, akin to the feeling of that first sleep in your own bed after a long stay away from home.

It had been almost a month and a half, and Nick Stokes was finally home. 

Well, his _ work _-home. 

Even though she had checked in with him during his time off, whether at the hospital or at his house, whether she was talking to him directly or through Greg, it was different talking to Nick Stokes, the civilian versus Nick Stokes, the CSI. 

The civilian Nick was just as fun to chat with, of course, and getting to know the man outside of a work relationship was a privilege that she didn’t take for granted. She had grown to form a real kinship with him, viewing him as a brother she never had. A brother she needed to take care of. Protect. And in return, she showed him some of the sheltered parts of her own heart, especially once she saw that he had treated his own actual sisters with the same affection and tease that he treated her. 

Nick Stokes, the CSI, however, had been more like a rival, at first--at one point they had literally engaged in an unspoken battle for a promotion that went bust, and while they were both credited with being the most emotional of the team, they were still on opposite sides of the spectrum of that compartmentalization. Yet they had such a strong understanding of each other that made them so in tune with the other, it was a partnership that could easily--and had easily--been misconstrued into something more. But neither of their hearts sought that out in each other, and belonged to more...wayward souls that they had somehow tethered to themselves.

She looked forward to telling Grissom that Nick was finally back at work, but was less enthused to talk about the events of his first case back, the revelation of yet another corrupted officer. She, like everyone else, had been fooled into believing the worst was over, that the hydra was beheaded and no more heads would be replaced. They knew, on some level that there would be some stragglers, some behaviors that would be investigated and restricted…

But they selfishly thought it wouldn’t be anybody they knew and worked with, not after McKeen. 

And nobody seemed to take Detective Vega’s death harder than Nick, though nobody would know it unless they knew _ him, _outside of some puffy eyes and flaring nostrils of upset. He had put his emotions aside as soon as they rose up, he always did, for the sake of the case. For the sake of justice. By the time all was said and done, she wouldn’t have even known anything had happened if it wasn’t for a quick aside from Brass when he had come to the lab for business. 

She had gone to find Nick immediately after, check in on him, and while they had a brief acknowledgement of Vega’s death, he seemed as if he had already moved past it, even had a gentle smile on his face as their conversation lightened to one of two celebrations to be had that night, the first being his return to form. 

But despite his outward appearance, she’s known him long enough to know when he’s not acting right, even in the slightest adjustments in his body language. 

Stiffened shoulders. Crossed arms. Tight lips. Furrowed eyebrows. Furious puffs of air from his nose. 

The exact opposite of what she’d expect to see during a birthday celebration, especially one for one of his friends. 

“Happy birthday, Hodges!” Everyone has cheered, Nick included, at first. An impromptu surprise party with the entire shift jammed into the break room. Even Sara had to admit it felt a little bit uncomfortable, claustrophobic. 

He stood near the edge of the room, sidling inches closer to the exit while he hugged his arms closer to himself, with a half-nervous smile on his face. 

A smile that slid off as soon as the traditional song began. 

A smile that disappeared entirely with the rest of his body, before the song had reached its climax.

She had always hated the song anyway, a creepily drawn out tune that served to do nothing but make the target uncomfortable, but usually Nick was a much larger participant. Hands gripping the birthday-person's shoulders. A gleeful, encouraging smile. A playful feign at dunking the person’s head into the cake. A truly lighthearted spin on an otherwise awkward situation. He was always good at that.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed. She even heard a call for his name as the cake was being served--“Stokes! Where’d he go, he always wants the middle piece!” She locked eyes with Greg, who was closer to the center, next to Hodges and Henry. They held a wordless conversation of concern, rapid heartbeats synchronizing and scenarios of despair rampant in their collective mind. Greg whipped out his phone while she took a more practical approach, stepping out into the hallway and visualizing his stepping out. 

She followed the ghost and spotted him behind the layers of the glass maze of the laboratory, head ducked into his hands. Making himself smaller. Hiding. 

Perhaps he wasn’t entirely back, after all, and she shuddered to think about how such an innocent song could have triggered such a response. 

* * *

_ “Oh, how the caged bird sings…” _

He knew it wasn’t real. 

The song was real, of course. It was a birthday party after all. Of course they would sing the song, celebrate the anniversary of David Hodges’ birth, what else do you do during a birthday party, but give that person the spotlight? And Hodges especially, would _ love _that, probably even more than the plans him and his fellow assclowns had in store for the weekend. 

Yet when the song started, the spotlight was on him instead. 

He was on the outskirts of the room, but still somehow in the center. 

He was leaning against the large metal barrier that connected the window panes of the break room, but the metal was as cold and harsh as the rounding bars of the bird cage he was trapped in.

A cage that nobody could see but him. 

_ “Happy birthday to you...Happy birthday to you…” _

He had started singing the song, initially for his friend, who didn’t even seem to notice how the effort he put into the words, to the tune grew softer and more frantic. Nobody seemed to notice how his fingers began to shake. How he felt a spasm of pain in his thigh. How he fell into a waking nightmare that he again, knew on some level, _ wasn’t real. _

The lights in the room flickered, and his cage expanded to engulf the audience in front of him.

Lab coats were plucked, backs were straightened. Large poles rose from the ground and wrapped around their waists, holding the other dolls in place. Dark, bulky rings appeared around their necks as they were all conducted by the giant hand--_ her _hand--looming above, singing the chorus in fake, cheery voices--the enthusiasm behind their words only rivaling the enthusiasm for their survival.

“You’re not singing loud enough, Nicky!” her voice rang out, invisible keys jangling as she pointed a finger at him. “Louder!” 

He stopped singing altogether, but the rest of the choir grew louder near the song’s climax. More obnoxious, the room was starting to spin, Veronica’s fingers kept jabbing at him, coaxing him.

Threatening him.

He couldn’t move backwards, so he sidled the wall until he found an opening, and ran out of the room, nearly stumbling onto the cold tile of the crime lab hallway. He took a few deep gulps of air, feeling something rising in the back of his throat and wishing he could shove it, and Veronica’s voice that still teased his throbbing ear drums, with some heavily artillery in the form of heavy liquor, his weapon of choice when battling the demon inside of him that reminded him that he was _ her’s. _

But he couldn’t. He was on the clock. Not a clock for survival, as he had been so many times before, but a clock of purpose. 

He was at work. Could hear the chirps and the beeps and the papers shuffled around. Could feel the companionship of his colleagues, the brainstorming and exchange of information and excitement that a case would be closed, justice would be served, peace of mind would be reached. 

And within the confines of the workplace, he was _ safe. _

For the most part. 

He shook off the flashback, or nightmare, or whatever it was--because it wasn’t real, just a trick of his mind and as he kept repeating that mantra, he hung his head in shame, allowing his feet to carry his body towards a secluded corner of the lab, setting him at a desk with a computer screen and access to a distraction, though one erupted in his pocket shortly after he sat down. 

His phone vibrated, he knew it was Greg. Before reading his message, he knew the question that he didn’t have the answer for, or at least not one Greg would have liked to hear. 

_ Everything okay? _

He chuckled breathlessly, wondering how anybody could ever think he would be “okay” ever again, wondering how he would have even allowed himself to think that. 

All he was, was a disappointment. 

He tossed the phone aside, wiped his face with his hands and logged into the computer. He honed in on the pixels on the screen, navigating through menus until he found the database of missing persons. His breathing steadied as he studied each face, read every name, searching for a connection of any sort of recognition. 

This probably wasn’t the time for it, but the distraction seemed to be working. He was in the zone of the search, for the other victims that were kept in the shelter. Nick knew he couldn’t save all of them. 

But even if he could just save _ one... _

“Hey,” Sara’s voice cut through the filtered silence, and suddenly the chirps and beeps and hums of the lab returned, startling him out of his momentary lapse.

“You didn’t want cake?” her lips curled into her trademark smirk, but her eyes were softer than the usual teasing. Coated in concern. His heart spiked, an alarm ringing in his head. The jig was up, he was going to be sentenced back to a pseudo-house arrest, they were going to realize he wasn’t ready to be back--

“Not hungry,” Nick covered with his own forced smile and a half-shrug. 

“It’s chocolate,” Sara piqued an eyebrow. “Your favorite.”

“Not my birthday,” Nick shook his head and redirected his attention back to the computer. 

_ But it was her’s. It was always her’s. _

“What’re you working on?” Sara mercifully changed the subject, stepping fully into the room and peeking over Nick’s shoulder.

He stiffened as he felt her breath against his ear, rolled his shoulders back before gesturing to the screen with his mouth open, because he really didn’t know what to say.

Yet he knew that Sara wouldn’t settle for anything less than the truth.

“Just...going through missing persons. Seeing if I see...anyone I...recognize,” His eyes didn’t quite meet hers, but he looked at her face, hoping but knowing that she wasn’t going to agree with his idea. 

And he was right. Sara’s smile dropped as she put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Nick...we know she kept you for…” Sara’s breath hitched, sensing Nick’s muscles tense between her soft touch. “Chances are they--”

On the one hand, he appreciated that she always seemed to play the devil’s advocate, reminding him that just because he was rescued, doesn’t mean others could be. It wasn’t his day. It could be, or could have already been, theirs. 

On the other, he was too stubborn to admit it. 

“All due respect, Sara, I know what I’m getting myself into with this,” Nick cleared his throat, redirecting himself towards the computer, continuing his search without another word. He felt the chill of solitude as Sara retreated, her footsteps somehow silent but thunderous before her voice carried from the doorway--

“Nick...you might want to chew some gum, or get a mint or something,” she told him. “And whatever you do...just don’t do it alone, okay?” 

He didn’t turn back, but hung his head in a single nod. 

His eyes landed on his phone, _ shit, I forgot… _

He texted Greg a quick, _ yeah, man, just some bathroom troubles, no biggie _and continued on, though a small part of him knew that Sara would be running right to Greg and that he wouldn’t be far behind in an appeal to get him to retreat back to the mundane normalcy of existing as Nick Stokes, the returning CSI. 

They would ultimately be disappointed, however, because it wasn’t the reality of who he was.

He may have been called Nick Stokes, sure, but he was no longer _ him. _

He was _a_ Nick, but Veronica’s Nick. Veronica’s pet. Veronica’s plaything. Veronica’s doll.

_ Veronica’s. _

But she wasn’t there.

Nor was she there when he landed on one particular entry that seemed to strike him and send him into another waking memory, of a woman across the hall, just barely visible in a cage diagonally set across from his own. 

She was crying. 

They all were, of course. 

In fear, because they didn’t know what was going on. Didn’t have the same intimate relationship with their owner as Nick did. 

They were just the merchandise. 

He had always wanted to help them, somehow. But anything he did, even when he tried to redirect the lightning to himself, she would just punish all of them.

Except him. 

Even though it was his fault.

It was always his fault.

_ “What’s your name?” _

_ It wasn’t the first time he had asked, but it would be the last. _

_ He had directed the question at the one captive he could fully see, and every time he did, every time he tried to offer some semblance of comfort, it would just be overtaken by a jealous madwoman who would somehow get wind of the sudden communication between her captives, and step in to remind them all of their place in the palm of her hand. _

_ And every time, she would make a point of putting Nick on the pedestal of perfection, even if he was the one who had instigated it all. _

_ It was somehow a worse punishment than anything she could physically do to him. _

_ “You could all learn something from Nick over there, look at him. So well behaved, so well trained--Oh, quit your quivering! It makes you unattractive, sweetheart…” _

_ He watched as she stepped into the woman’s cage, her lips opening and closing. Wet, shaking. Dripping in drool. Her eyes wide, panicked. Her eyebrows creasing her skin--he got sympathy pains in his own throbbing forehead from the strain of having to keep so perfectly still in the clutches of the human-sized doll stand, because he was certain that even the slightest movement must have caused her tremendous stress. _

_ Especially if Veronica saw it, as she had just done, and punished the woman with a shock delivered to her collar. _

_ “S-sorry…” the woman whispered. _

_ “No. Talking!” Veronica screamed into the woman’s face, which made the woman crumble and lit a fire inside of Nick’s chest, but he remained on the floor where he belonged, selfishly afraid that the keys would clink up against each other and he’d be wrung around his own neck. _

_ Veronica turned to Nick, plastered a far too fake smile before she returned her gaze to her struggling captive, cupping a hand on her cheek and stroking her tears with her thumb. _

_ “Listen...it’s better you learn this from me, than from your new owner. Trust me. It’s easier this way.” _

_ Veronica’s palm lifted away, before sending a sharp slap that bounced off the walls and might as well have slapped Nick in the face, too, before the click of her heels grew louder as they approached him. _

_ She didn’t say a word, just seemed to take the moment to appreciate her most obedient possession with a wide smile. She crouched down, reached a hand through the bar and stroked Nick’s face with the tip of her finger. _

_ “I’ll be back to play with you later, Nicky,” she cooed at him. “Keep watch on the others while I’m away, kay?” _

_ She pinched his cheek, he shook out of her grasp and she giggled as he grimaced, ignoring the kiss that she blew at him through the bars of his cell. _

_ He watched the recovering woman try once again to say something to him, just slightly moving her head so that she could get a good look at him, her lips quivering though she seemed to lower the volume of any noises that came out. _

_ This time, he shook his head and retreated further into his cell. _

_ Out of sight, out of mind. _

But he had still watched her lips in that moment nonetheless, and as he stared at the name on the screen, he felt something resonate within him. 

“Becky,” he mouthed, parroting the muted memory through the picture on the screen, in a much happier state, a smile on her face, life shining in her frozen eyes, watching her mouth once again communicate to Nick the only thing he had really needed to catch a break. 

Her name. 

* * *

“Who’s this?” Brass asked, picking up the folder that Nick threw onto the half of the burrito that hadn’t made it into his mouth yet. 

“Rebecca Yates.” 

“And she is…?” DB urged on as he rose from the couch, walking over to the file opened on Brass’ desk. 

“One of the...one of the other victims,” Nick sighed. “She was there, in the shelter, sold off to...well, I don’t know where, but if we can jump on this, we might be able to get her back, and maybe catch Veronica in the process.”

“Nick, buddy, I know this means a lot to you, and I know I’ve come to you with hunches before that resulted in my favor, but this...seems like you might be reaching a bit, you know?” 

“It’s not just a hunch,” Nick insisted. He unfolded his arms, pulled out a photo from the file and pointed to a photo taken on the day of her last known location. A picture of a book club meeting, taking place at some sort of restaurant with a group of women who all held up glasses of mimosas, feasting on what Nick assumed was a brunch, but the most important detail was the identity of one of the women, that hadn’t been known until Nick revisited the file and identified her immediately. 

Veronica was there, with the same malicious smile, glass in hand, toasting to the camera.

Toasting to Nick.


	25. The Five Drink Commandments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick has a rough time before he and DB pay a visit to Becky's home, and even rougher when an intimate night is soured by the disappearance of Catherine and DB.

The speed and intensity of the process varied between the types of alcohol he consumed, but the end results were always the same. 

The first drink was a rewarding relief from the stress of the day--or for his schedule rather, the night. The timing of it all was unnatural relative to the social norm of working a nine to five job and going out to a bar afterwards, but he had been working nights for the last twelve years, and on top of that, it was one of the many benefits of working in Las Vegas. Everything was open 24/7. 

Just like Greg. 

He thought about Greg when he took the first sip. Thought about how he should be there with him. Or anybody, because he shouldn’t drink alone. Sara.

Catherine.

Morgan.

Hell, maybe even DB or Grissom, if he was in town. 

Warrick.

And then he’d remember that Warrick was dead. 

After a few sips, his nerves would finally settle, any semblance of anxiety gone. His thoughts stopped racing ahead of him, any echoes or ghosts from his past would surpass him, leaving him alone with nobody but himself. 

And that was okay. 

Nobody around to judge him. Nobody around to hear any accidental slip ups as he felt his tongue untie itself, partake in imaginary conversations in which he would tell people how he  _ really  _ felt. He would make vows to himself, that tomorrow would be the day, tomorrow he would put his foot down against whatever injustices he felt were against him on a personal level. He would turn everything around, make his life better. 

He would make sure to leave his phone on the other side of the room, so that he wouldn’t accidentally send a text message to the wrong person about the wrong thing. 

The glass, or bottle, or whatever sort of receptacle he was drinking out of would empty, and the feeling would start to fade. 

He’d be reminded of how  _ alone  _ he was.

How nobody was coming to help him. 

There would be a time, a place, in which it would be  _ his  _ turn on the autopsy table. His turn to get bagged and tagged and held up as a piece of evidence in court of somebody else’s misdeed. 

He’d be reminded, not for the first and definitely not for the last time, that his time on this earth is  _ so short.  _

He poured another glass. Got another bottle. Mixed another drink. 

The bitter, mind-altering taste would return and fizzle in his mouth and he would realize, fuck it, he didn’t need any help. Just needed more alcohol, that’s all, to keep him in this free floating, invincible feeling that nothing could hurt him. His body seemed to expand in pride, he felt larger than ever before. He could  _ enjoy  _ the rest of his short time here on the earth. 

It’s what he’s owed, after all he’s been through. 

On the third drink, everything was forgotten, and he existed solely as a man living in a moment in which he felt  _ happy.  _ He’d smile, brighter and more genuine than ever before as he thought back to the other moments he had experienced--either by himself or others.

More often than not, he’d find himself reliving moments where he was out with Warrick, playing cards or just venting out the frustrations of their work, bonded in solidarity, a true brotherhood that somehow felt stronger than his relationships with his own blood brothers. Then again, his own brothers never seemed to believe in him and feed him strength like Warrick did. 

Never pulled him out of literal rock bottoms after a fall or a burial or a spiral of fury, like Warrick did. 

If he could, he’d call up Warrick and ask for his company as he tried to climb out of this one. 

He’d think of moments he was with Sara, the emotions they kept under lock and key revealed to each other because nobody else quite understood why they always wore their hearts on their sleeves when it came to empathizing with the victims--and although they were different in some aspects, with arguments that while Sara would become almost obsessively invested and that Nick would just become ignorantly blinded by his emotions, they both found solace in the fact that simply, both of them  _ cared.  _ They didn’t view these cases with the routine callousness, the desensitization that would make them efficient in the labor of their field, sure--and at some point, Nick did realize he just got...used to it all. Used to seeing blood. Used to seeing death. Used to seeing  _ trauma,  _ but he didn’t need to become a CSI to see that. 

And neither did Sara.

She had been extending her hand ever since he came home from the hospital, but this...this might be too much for even her to handle. She had only just come back almost two years ago from her own burn out. He wouldn’t want to cause another one. 

So near the end of the third drink, when he would stumble to the bathroom--laughing as he slapped his hands against the walls as he staggered to a change of scenery, even though he wasn’t in a crowded club, he still acquainted the thought of a bodily relief with a social relief as well, a moment of pure solitude and reflection--he’d start to think about what he would be returning to, when he made the decision to exit the sanctuary, because even his inebriated mind knew, he couldn’t stay in there forever. 

And no matter where he was, if he was at a club, at a bar, at a casino, at a party or a friend’s or even his own house, he always wanted to return to the man he loved. 

He wanted to be with his ultimate companion, touching and feeling and  _ melting  _ together to become one cohesive unit of understanding, forming a connection he didn’t think he could have with any other soul, besides his. He had come close, sure, but nobody else seemed to have room in their heart for all of the baggage that came with being committed to Nick Stokes. 

And it seemed Greg’s heart had become cluttered--he doesn’t blame the man, especially with what he went through, with what  _ they  _ went through.

And what Nick did to him. 

He needed more time.

Nick would feel the effects start to slip away, and at this point, a conflict with his body would arise. His head would somehow feel empty and heavy at the same time, the slightest movement causing a sort of motion sickness with burping threats of vomit ready to propel out of his body. 

He just needed some food, that’s all.

And maybe another drink.

He wouldn’t have the motor skills required to prepare an actual meal, something he’d laugh about if he even dared to try to boil a pot of water--darkly, humorously wondering if the knuckleheads in the Arson department would be able to crack a case like this. Wondering who had bet on “Nick getting burnt to a crisp” in the pool of what would finally kill Nick Stokes once and for all. 

A small voice inside his head would try to appeal to him that he should stop eating so much junk food if he doesn’t want his COD to be from some heart condition, or clogged arteries, or decaying away from inactivity as he melted into his couch, feeling no desire to ever move again--and he had plenty of practice in not moving, most of the time, his life depended on that robbery of control. 

He didn’t care what that voice had to say, and pushed it away just like all the others with another drink. 

But somehow, that drink wouldn’t help. The voice--his own voice, would just keep on going, reminding him how  _ stupid  _ this was. How stupid  _ he  _ was. He knew better than this. Knew better than to abuse his body like this. He couldn’t get past things if he just swept it under the rug, no matter how hard he’s tried that for over half--well, really... _ most  _ of his life at this point. 

He’s watched people  _ die  _ from shit like this. 

And oh god, he wouldn’t mind that, as he would run to the bathroom and expel his stomach contents and just...sit there. Hugging the toilet, the putrid smell of its water goading more fluid out of his body, fluids that he didn’t recognize, wondered if they really needed to stay in him, if maybe he needed another drink to replenish them--

Or maybe, he just needed to sleep it off.

He would crawl to the bedroom, the irony not lost on him as he would almost beg for Veronica’s voice to come and scrutiny him, because he was getting sick of his own self deprecation. At least if it was coming from Veronica, he would have someone to blame other than himself. 

He would get into bed, close his eyes, but he would still feel as if he were spinning, rotating. His face would squeeze which wouldn’t help  _ at all  _ as he would just beg for it all to end, for the black void of unconsciousness to overtake him.

He would flip over, try another position. It would cost him another bout of nausea, but he wouldn’t get up to go to the bathroom until he absolutely  _ had to.  _ Perhaps his body was just playing tricks on him, throwing a tantrum, not wanting to sleep. He didn’t necessarily disagree, he felt like he had wasted these last few hours...these last few weeks...his entire  _ life… _ and felt like he should do more. Be more. Be  _ better.  _ For himself. For others. 

And the only way to start that, was by going to  _ sleep.  _ Recalibrate his body. Reset the day. Turn his brain off for a bit, and when he’d wake up, things would be different. 

But on nights like these, he couldn’t tell if sleep ever actually came, or if he had just spent the entire night tossing and turning and somehow...floating above his own body, watching his shrunken form curled in himself on the bed--viewing him with the same discretion as Nigel did, as Veronica did. Watching their plaything writhe and cry and beg to be left alone. Hearing his own screams come from his own mouth but also not, as he was just an observer of this spectacle. 

He didn’t understand the appeal.

Eventually he would be woken by an alarm, or as he did on this particular night, a phone call from his boss. 

“Hey, Nick, you ready?”

His heart would sink. He managed to momentarily forget a lot of things, but apparently he forgot what mattered the most; _ his job. _

“Ye-yeah, boss, what’s the address?” he would stammer, shaking off the images of his disapproving boss--both old and new as he would quickly get dressed, splashing his face with water, covering up the alcohol-infused ruins of his mouth with mouthwash and toothpaste and breath mints. He would listen to the instructions that were repeated to him, not for the first time, because he didn’t remember that they were going to go interview Becky’s family, treating this cold case as if it were brand new. 

He would exit his house to the blinding daylight, because not many families took kindly to a late night call. Even with a pair of sunglasses, his eyes wouldn’t be protected from the disorienting blast of sunshine, sending him into a sensory overload as he suddenly felt small again--every ambient noise of the neighborhood, the wind in the trees, dogs barking, cars driving by were amplified tenfold. His brain  _ pounding  _ against his skull, having loosened up and now bouncing like a pinball as he limited his movements as much as he could. He would drink a Gatorade and make a quick pit stop to the local gas station for the saltiest, greasiest food he could find to ironically settle his stomach but hey, if it worked, it worked.

And it would work, as well as it could to ease up the pain, though the disorienting dissociation would remain, feeling as if he had entered some parallel world where everything was the same, except he was still searching for the parts of himself that he drowned and suffocated the night before.

It was a futile effort, there have been parts of himself he had lost at various stages of his life that he was  _ never  _ getting back.

He met his boss in the parking garage of the lab. They drove together to the other side of town, mercifully with little to no small talk as he was still absolutely hungover, but hiding it well enough that DB didn’t seem to acknowledge it, or if he did, had remained silent about it. 

He probably did notice. The man had a teenage boy after all. 

And perhaps he did care, at least a fraction but when he peeled away his sunglasses as they pulled up to the picket-fenced, true American homestead that belonged to the Yates family and DB looked into Nick’s eyes, he asked the silent question, that he was running out of ways to answer with anything but the truth--

_ Are you going to be okay with this? _

Nick’s head tilted up, gulped down the wad of bitter spit that wanted to leap out between his teeth and affirmed that,  _ No, probably not, but I’m going to have to be. I have no other choice. _

They exited the car and entered the house, Nick taking the lead and DB following behind with a close eye and supportive hand that nearly startled Nick out of his skin as it landed on his shoulder, while they waited for their approach to be met with a frazzled bed-headed, shadow of a man holding a small infant in one hand, patting down a bouncing girl with the other.

“Mr. Yates?” Nick cleared his throat. He knew they had the right address, but a part of him was always anxious at this part; usually having to ask tough questions, deliver bad news, and he wouldn’t mind if he asked this question only be to told “sorry, you have the wrong house” if it meant getting a few extra minutes before having to deal with the shock waves of the crushing weight of his job. 

But this man already endured that conversation, which somehow made it worse. Now they were just reopening old wounds.

“Yeah,” the man breathed, eyes flickering at the badges on Nick’s waist, DB’s chest. “You’re not...cops…”

“No, sir, we’re-we’re with the crime lab. My name is Nick Stokes, this is DB Russell. We’d like to ask you a few questions--”

“Did you find her?”

“Daddy, daddy! I wanna playyyyyy!” the little girl interrupted once she realized that the visitors weren’t for her, giving Nick and DB a small chance to exchange a glance,  _ what’s the best way to break the news to him?  _

“Not now, sweetie,” the man sighed. “Why don’t you go draw a picture, or talk to Luigi?” 

“Awww,” the girl groaned, but spun and ran off to another room. 

“We haven’t, but we’re re-examining the case, giving it a new set of eyes,” DB elaborated once the girl retreated.

“I don’t know what I could tell you that I didn’t tell the other cops…”

“That’s okay, it’s not what you can tell us, but it’s rather...what we can give you. A new perspective.” 

The man’s lips began to quiver, his face resigned as his youngest began to wriggle with a gentle cry that made him succumb and allow the CSIs into his house with a nod of his head, leading them to the kitchen. 

“So, what, is my house a crime scene, now?” the man asked as he prepared a bottle for the baby. “Is that what this new ‘perspective’ is about?”

Nick didn’t quite appreciate the man’s hostility but did his best to keep his mouth shut, because he didn’t want to guilt trip the man into realizing just exactly what this perspective was--the perspective from a fellow victim to his wife. 

So DB took the reins, and pulled out the picture.

“Do you recognize these women?”

“Yeah, that’s the picture I gave the others when I reported her disappearance...that’s Rebecca and her book club, most recent picture we have of her…”

Mr. Yates seemed to be lost in the picture for a moment, lust in his eyes that darkened before he spoke again.

“Do you think any of them had anything to...to do with this?” he asked in a low whisper, as if the baby cradled in his arms would understand the intricacies of his mother’s abduction and implications that someone close to her would have done it.

“How well do you know them?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve met a few of them, some of them come over for dinner throughout the week, have playdates with the kids, take Rebecca out...I talk to their husbands more than anything, I guess…”

“Do you recognize--” Nick pointed a finger to his owner, “--this woman?”

“That’s...V? She was a newer member, Rebecca had actually invited her over..the same week...I last saw her.”

The horror sank in. 

“I had gone upstairs to put the kids to bed, and then gone to bed myself” he started to blubber, his eyes reddening. “I think she must have stayed for a while, the next morning, I found an empty bottle of wine and a few glasses...and a note from Rebecca saying she had gone to work and would clean up later…”

The man seemed to search the room wildly, falling back into a flashback and dragging Nick with him, as he walked half-asleep into the kitchen, unknowing that yes, his house was a crime scene. 

A crime scene of an abduction.

“It...it wasn’t unlike her to have some drinks with her friends, stay up late...Sometimes they even slept over but...I didn’t...I didn’t think that they would…”

Nick, meanwhile sank further into the memory, rising from his chair as he fought the knot twisting in his stomach. The ghost of Mr. Yates disappeared, instead, he watched as the ghost of Rebecca giggled and danced around the room, serving food and wine and having the time of her life with someone she must have, on some level, considered a friend.

Meanwhile, the ghost of Veronica had one hand behind her back. Tipped something into Rebecca’s glass when she wasn’t looking.

Somehow found Nick, in the present time and looked at him.

And winked.

“Excuse me…Where’s the bathroom?” Nick quickly asked, anxiety over any sort of social judgement of interrupting such a solemn moment be damned, his body was having a reaction and he needed to quell it. Mr. Yates didn’t seem to care anyway, seemed more interested in how sweet, shy  _ Veronica,  _ of all people, could have betrayed his family in such a way, and no, he didn’t seem to know his last name, but offered to find Rebecca’s address book--he waved Nick off to the hallway--“second door on the left,” and when Nick emerged moments later after a fake out panic attack, he found himself wandering to the den for a reprieve of isolated silence before rejoining the broken heart in the kitchen.

It wasn’t silent nor was it a retreat into solitude--he should have just stayed in the bathroom but it was too small of a room, space enough only for him to stand between the toilet and sink, cornering him in and not just that,  _ boxing  _ him in--and it was too late for him to try another room before the Yates’ oldest daughter saw Nick and smiled.

“Hi,” Nick smiled back, even if he wasn’t in the mood, the young child’s energy was infectious. “What’s your name?”

“Madison!” the girl chirped proudly. “What’s yours?” 

“Madison...that’s a very cute name. My name’s Nick.” 

“Are you gonna find my mom?”

Nick didn’t know how to answer, offering a hand on top of the one that was resting idly on the small table she was coloring on. Her smile got brighter as Nick’s faded away, wondering if it was really best to put such a grandiose idea in her head when he honestly wasn’t sure himself, if they were  _ really  _ going to find Becky…

And more than that, find her  _ alive. _

“What are you drawing?” Nick asked in a dry voice, eager to change the subject and hoped the kid wouldn’t press further.

“Well that’s Daddy, with me n’ Patrick--and there’s Luigi in the corner! He’s always in the corner, singing his songs.” 

Nick was only slightly disturbed and saddened by the fact that she had neglected to include her mother in the picture of her current household, and didn’t dare ask where she thought she was.

“Luigi?” he instead asked, for clarification, wondering if it was an imaginary friend.

“Yeah, there he is, over there!” Madison got up and grabbed Nick’s hand, dragging him to the corner of the room. 

It turned out that Luigi was a green parakeet, dancing nervously on a hanging beam in a medium sized cage--he was molting heavily, his food seemed neglected. 

“He doesn’t sing much anymore...Not since Mommy…”

Nick’s heart fell, for the kids, for the bird, for the man who seemed to just barely seemed to keep everything together in this crumbling cookie cutter household. 

He crouched to his knees so that he was eye level with the young girl, sandwiched the hand that had grabbed his, and breathed, calling all the strength in his body to impart onto her, because she needed it far more than him.

“We’re going to find your mom,” Nick answered her previously unanswered question. There was a twinkle in her eyes despite the neutrality of her face--despite her young age, there seemed to be a small part of her developing brain that seemed to understand well enough what was happening, and it was that part of her that started to glow in the hope that Nick was giving her. “I  _ promise.”  _

The girl’s smile returned, and she started swinging Nick’s arms around, lost in the innocent whims of childhood. He was envious that she was able to pull herself out of dwelling on the ongoing tragedy, while Nick had to continue working on the seemingly endless, impossible puzzle while dancing with the demons assaulting his brain.

“Maddie, honey, it’s time for lunch,” Mr. Yates sniffled as he and DB stood in the threshold of the den. Madison nodded and bounced away into the kitchen, telling her father all about her new friend that was “going to find Mommy! He promised!” 

He could sense the frown on the father’s face even through the thick walls that separated him.

“You okay?” DB asked once they was sure they were alone.

Nick got to his feet, his focus on the bird cage, momentarily lost in the fascination of observation. He always liked birds, always had the pipe dream of becoming an ornithologist--even half joked to Grissom once about becoming a  _ forensic  _ ornithologist, if such a position existed, and if not, maybe he could be the first. 

From a very young age, he had been impressed with their style. To a young Nick’s mind, they were beautiful creatures flying in the air with various sizes and shapes and colors, and it was a more stimulating sight than the airplanes flying over his head. He loved watching them land, take in the sights before simply rising up and fluttering away--they had an ability to flee from predators, and a sweeping advantage on prey. A  _ freedom _ that other animals didn’t seem to have. 

A freedom that could only be contained in an enclosure of metal bars. 

“Birds don’t like round cages,” he mused to DB as he examined the structure in front of him. 

_ And neither did I, for that matter. _

He wanted to elaborate on why birds should be either kept free or in a more rectangular structure, but his lecture stopped short, as the bird seemed to...disappear. The cage began to shrink. It became another memory, holding the ghost of himself, naked and collared and trembling.

And more scared than he’s ever been in his life.

“He was able to give me the names of a few of the other ladies in the club. I figured we can split up, and through them we can find the rest.”

“Sounds good,” Nick breathed in a toneless voice, eyes still transfixed in front of him, unable to see DB approach him from behind. 

“Look, why don’t you go home, get some rest before shift officially starts? You look like you had a rough morning,” DB whispered into his ear. 

“No, no, I can...I can do this,” Nick nodded shortly, despite his body’s protests telling him that a nap would probably do him some good. He turned around, clapped DB on the shoulder. “Let’s see this list.”

He shot one final glance to the cage in the corner of the room on the way out, vowing that he would come back for it, to rescue the part of himself that continued to haunt him. 

But first he had to rescue Becky.

* * *

Weeks passed, and whatever side project Nick seemed to be working on that he wasn’t telling Greg didn’t seem to be going that well. He had a feeling, based on information Sara told him in confidence after the incident at Hodges’ birthday celebration in the lab, that it was related to the latest exercise of his hero complex; a mission to save the other victims Veronica had trafficked away. 

He didn’t press Nick, however, following the lesson he learned in therapy to allow Nick to come to him. The turtle would come out of its shell on its own, but not if Greg kept poking at it. 

Not that anything Greg said would make him give up, anyway. He always admired that persistence in Nick, and it’s literally saved lives before. He just needed to have a little more patience.

They both did.

And patient they were, as they feasted on drumsticks while they watched supposed “super” beetles feast on one of their own.

“It's amazing. They picked it clean in less than an hour,” Nick shook his head, marveling at the speed of the horde of miniscule insects. 

“Yeah. They eat even faster than you,” Greg playfully teased, and was glad to see Nick share a smile with him--not the first since they put their heads together on this experiment. Nick seemed eager to educate Greg on this particular species, and even more so to brainstorm solutions to this “entomological mystery,” which ordinarily, Nick probably would have sought the answer from in their old mentor, Gil Grissom.

But Nick was becoming quite the bug man himself, his own person, blossoming in a new, matured, wiser and most importantly,  _ independent  _ manner in which he could tackle problems, such as this one, with little to no help.

And for that matter, so was Greg, as he’s become more and more comfortable in his role as an investigator, and as a supporting partner to the man he’s lusted after for over twelve years.

He knew Nick didn’t  _ really  _ need his help on this, didn’t need the extra set of eyes, he could have done this experiment all on his own. 

He even seemed sad that Greg had to leave before he performed the world’s smallest autopsy, because he had gotten some results on an unrelated case that he needed to follow up on.

“C’mon, man, not often we get to play coroner!” Nick held his hands out, and Greg wanted to jump into them so badly. 

“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t miss it for the world…” Greg said, with only the faintest trace of sarcasm as he wasn’t  _ actually  _ that interested, just more so happy to see Nick get invested in... _ something  _ again. “Hey, why don’t we grab a beer later, you can tell me all about it? Over some...pillowtalk?” 

Nick smiled, his ears perking up. 

“Yeah, I’d like that. See you later.”

Later would be delayed even further, however. Once their heads hit the pillow, as their foreheads collided gently, as their lips drew closer together on an invisible string of their shared breath, they were interrupted by a new break in the case and Nick had to go back to the lab, fill in himself, and then Catherine and DB.

Only...he couldn’t find either of them. 

Nobody could. 

Until Greg found DB’s vehicle, abandoned.

And stained with blood.


	26. Would've, Could've, Should've

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catherine is found again only to take her leave, and Nick makes a fool out of himself in both past and present as a truth is revealed and his relationship with Greg is put to a test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a few months later...it’s finally here. This is it. The big one. The chapter with content I’ve been thinking about almost since this fic was conceived, inspired loosely by my own experiences and dreams. This is quite possibly one of the best I've done--or at least, that I’m most proud of for all that has happened in writing this fic so far. It's a long one, longer than any chapter I've written in a multi-chapter fic before and there is a lot to unpack.
> 
> special warnings in this one for slurs, and mentions of sexual abuse.

The panic didn’t really find its way under his skin until they arrived at Catherine's house, seemingly unbroken but definitely not untouched. 

The missed phone calls, the checking of empty offices, the news of the continuing twists and turns in the case didn’t balance out the sinking weight of an empty firearm holster resting in the same box that Catherine kept her back-up weapon in. 

_ That’s  _ when the panic pulled a heavy sigh out of his lowered head, his eyes shut tight as he turned off all of the parts of his brain that told him that  _ this is not good. _

Because while yes, it was as far as good as a situation can get, it would do Catherine and DB absolutely no good at all to have him on his knees, trembling as he gripped the wood of the side table because if he didn’t, he would crash through entirely. 

He needed to turn off Nick Stokes, the vulnerable human, and become Nick Stokes,  _ crime stopper. _

_ Friend saver.  _

_ Hound of justice. _

It’s a switch he’s had to flip before. 

He’s had to stare into the eyes of his best friend who was waiting on a bed for their mom to arrive, choking back tears and feeling...violated. While the beatdowns were far from alike, they were still similar in the loss of their respective innocence, their first exposure to violence. He was able to stop the monster before it could ravage more souls, stop more crimes before they even began, and still walk into the hospital room with an encouraging smile and enough distractions to keep Greg Sanders from letting his life be ruined by a betrayal of trust when he called for back-up, and it didn’t come in time. 

He’s had to become a vulture and circle around the room of a stalker who took pictures— _ drew  _ pictures,  _ created  _ his best friend in her image in order to satisfy the intense jealousy souring the demented mind that was so pungent, the psycho thought it was necessary to lay her victim to rest underneath a pile of rubble and a piece of machinery that couldn’t be lifted by any human body. He was able to keep his feet from sinking, keep himself from falling back into the entrapment of the box as he dug and dug and  _ dug  _ so deep down looking for any signs of life because he was rescued, and so Sara Sidle could be too. And she was. He saved her just as she had saved him, and it wasn’t a payment of debt, wasn’t some sort of obligation just so he wouldn’t have to take over her cases, no, it was an act of love, solidifying the bedrock of platonic intimacy that bound their souls together as if they were a real brother and sister. 

He’s had to put the blindfold on and put the bias of friendship aside in order to objectively find, process and defend the evidence that proved that his best friend didn’t commit one of the most unspeakable, unforgivable acts, that he wouldn’t become just another trail of numbers locked away behind bars among the very same criminals they had worked  _ together  _ to put away. He had a high amount of empathy that he couldn’t show, not even as he silently supported his scrutinized friend from behind the lens of the microscope. He had to put the tightest leash on himself to remain professional, exhibit the same restraint he held when he had to plaster on a smile and do  _ nothing  _ in order to prove his own innocence when he had been framed as anything but. Yet it wasn’t that easy. The blindfold had a crack. The hound stretched the limit of his leash to bite at the nagging doubts from the investigators, even from  _ their own friends  _ that an innocent man was guilty of what was really, a favor by severing one of the heads to the Hydra that loomed its shadow over the expanse of Sin City. 

And just as his own name had been cleared, he continued the chain by helping in ensuring that Warrick Brown got the justice he was  _ owed.  _

And he was going to pay up for what Catherine and DB were owed, too. 

He stepped up to the plate, bat at the ready. Eye on the ball. Head in the game. He could feel the wind of the cold night air tickle the back of his neck, feel the dread that he’ll hit nothing, just strikes but with the first swinging command he finds himself pinballing between the bases, coming to a screeching halt when he finds Henry crouching on the ground. He looked helpless, sinking into the bog of intrusive thoughts, of doubts that Nick more than understood—but there was no time to waste in wallowing.

“Don’t think, man, just...do it, okay?” he advised, more to himself than Henry, and allowed himself a breath while Sara came up behind him.

“Hey, did Catherine say anything to you about quitting?” she asked.

His heart sank, though he didn’t know why at the time.

“No, why?”

“She sent a resignation e-mail to Russell.”

“Well, if she was gonna leave, she would've told us first…Right?”

He paused.

Which allowed enough time for  _ her  _ voice to come swimming in his head. 

_ “No, she just left you. Abandoned you. Everybody you love, that you think loves you, will leave you eventually, without a single word or glance.” _

“And, well...wouldn’t be the first time a resignation letter was faked to throw…” his tongue licked over his lips nervously, “everybody off the trail, now, huh?”

Just like it wouldn’t be the first time an abduction like this began with the resignee being sent home to “cool off.”

His lower lip began to tremble, the adrenaline of leadership falling into a frightened submission to the same bog that had damn near drowned Henry.

His eyes met with Sara’s, she studied him for a moment before shaking her head.

“Nothing's making sense right now.”

He almost hoped it was her. 

He almost hoped it was Veronica, that they could finally capture her, make her atone for all she had done, and not just to him—though it wouldn’t be enough. No amount of punishment could ever balance the scale of justice for the crimes Veronica committed.

Or he could trade himself for Catherine and DB. Give himself to her entirely. Keep everyone safe. 

She wouldn’t  _ kill  _ him, after all.

Brass jostled him out of his head with a gentle hand on his back, and he was pulled back to a determined reality.

“Okay, I'm sticking with the plan—radio silence. If someone's listening in, they won't be hearing us. Now all communication will be face-to-face. The sheriff has agreed to wait an hour before she calls the Feds.”

Nick nodded and swallowed down the last of his dreading, doubtful thoughts, reining himself in and dragging out his long-buried optimism.

“That buys us some time; that's good.”

But the bought time sold out quickly as he was constantly reminded of how, despite how much he tried to treat it as such, this wasn’t just another case. The cloud of corruption that had rained on them before was keeping Catherine and Russell hiding in the gutters. 

And even worse, Catherine was injured.

“Catherine’s in no condition to be on the run.”

Hearing it said out loud by a medical examiner didn’t put his mind any more at ease. The firm grasp he’d held on his leading role dared to slip away every time someone voiced their fear, the same fear that threatened to engulf him into despair. 

_ “Remember what happened when you tried to run? Didn’t end too well for you, did it?”  _ Veronica’s voice whispered.

“I know that,” Nick answered to both voices.

“Certainly not with a  _ hit team  _ chasing her—”

“Well, let’s hope we get to them before they do,” his voice slightly raised in the face of the stunned doctor, re-asserting himself in the distorted reflection of the nearby organ scale, which showed a less composed version of himself. 

He couldn’t waste time on that. On himself. He needed to bring  _ them  _ home. Essentially the “Mom” and “Dad” of the team—well, rather “Mom” and newly introduced “Uncle,” as the father designation belonged to an old mentor who would know what to do in this situation far better than Nick would, despite the compliments he’d been paid by many in the lab and on the force for his leadership, many times before this incident and many times after. 

Because what kind of leader would collapse in the corner as soon as the real ones are wheeled into the morgue? He knew it was staged, teased their new supervisor with a joke about coming back to the world of the living but it was a disturbing sight to see a body leave the bag that’s usually so...still.

And then Catherine’s bag was opened, and while her injury wasn’t catastrophic, it was an injury nonetheless. The playful banter continued, awkwardly tip-toeing around just how close they came to losing her, and the rapid pace of Nick’s heart settled. The adrenaline ebbed away.

Doc Robbins offered to re-dress her wounds, and Sara offered to help her re-dress.

DB asked Nick to fill him in on what he missed, and clapped him on the shoulder. Good job. You’re a natural. You did good, bud. 

And that was it. 

His part was over. 

He was able to step off the plate and go sit on the bench and  _ rest.  _

It was exhausting having to keep up the façade of Nick Stokes. Having to pretend he had his shit together. Having to act as if he wasn’t crafting millions of scenarios in his head of what would have or could have or should have happened in this near miss experience. 

It was an exhaustion that almost made him feel drunk. Eyes straining to focus. Head dizzy. His movements were slow and purposeful, yet somehow sloppy. He started saying things that didn’t quite make sense. Tripped over words. Longed for sleep, yet when he closed his eyes he was unsettled by the thought of unconsciousness, and feared what might be done with him.

More than anything, he  _ wished  _ he was actually drunk, because Veronica was still laughing at him. 

He made himself scarce. Changed his shirt that was pitted with sweat stains. Splashed his face with water, tried to distract himself with paperwork while the rest of the team closed the case, and when they all came back on Monday morning, things would possibly go back to some semblance of normal.

And then Catherine called a family meeting. 

The whole idea of a “family” meeting had angered him. Sure, they all  _ knew  _ they were a family but there was just something about the way it was suddenly being pointed out more and more, especially with DB who was the ultimate family man, it almost seemed that in hammering in the fact that this team is a family it was almost...mocking that in a way. Overrating it. 

Some things really don’t need to be said. It had been said before, even out of his own mouth but every time the word was used it almost triggered a reminder of the parts of the family that were missing. Having quit or left or otherwise. And now with Catherine leaving, the tree was losing another branch. The fracture deepened. 

“This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I mean, how could I leave this place?” she cried with a disbelieving laugh. “How could I leave all of you?”

He knew the day would come sooner or later. Knew it wasn’t going to last forever, certainly not after Grissom left, although it was the split they endured almost seven years ago that reminded them that this team wasn’t set in stone. Fragile. Could easily be torn apart by the vultures of fate.

And it was a great opportunity, the  _ best  _ opportunity and if any of them deserved a position working for the FBI, it was Catherine Willows. 

He was still upset nonetheless.

“You...are a rock-solid, bad-ass team of criminalists, and don't  _ ever _ forget it.”

He didn’t feel bad-ass in the slightest, as he didn’t even bother to hide his tears. His voice quivered as he spoke the words that were on everyone’s mind. For a second, he dared to hope that in this tragedy, maybe part of him was coming back. 

But the words that came out of his mouth tasted somehow...bitter. 

“You’ll be here with us, always,” he had said.

But he knew she wouldn’t be there for  _ him.  _ She hadn’t been for quite some time. 

An outpour of love and hugs and affirming touches ensued, with Nick being the first, his hug lingering and plastering on a reassuring smile though inside, he was panicking. 

Catherine was leaving the lab. 

Leaving  _ him,  _ without even the chance of actually talking to the man she knew instead of the empty husk he became. 

He had trusted her with secrets that he had never told anybody before. She trusted him with admissions of vulnerability. They trusted  _ each other,  _ though the trust had been challenged many times before and he of course, wouldn’t tell her  _ everything  _ that was on his mind because that wasn’t his thing—but he would be lying if he said it wasn’t a little cathartic that at least  _ one  _ person knew his dark past, and would be in his corner if someone wasn’t as forgiving as she was when he came face to face with that demon, and became reclusive and hostile as a result. 

Who could he trust now?

He found himself shuffling to the back as the rest of the group said their goodbyes, though it wasn’t a final goodbye in the slightest. The minute the crying stopped, the celebrating began with almost the entire night shift lab and a few close members from the police department infiltrating and taking residence in a large, crowded bar at one of the casinos in Catherine’s name. 

The party they never got to throw for Grissom, who had left without taking a piece of cake or any sort of speech. Just an announcement and some private exchanges—which of course, was very in character for the man but after all he had done for the team, and more specifically, for Nick, he wished they could have had this...extravagance, almost. 

But then again, Nick was used to large gatherings like this and while draining and overstimulating at the same time, there was a social need that he would be glad to have filled. Connections would be re-solidified as everyone schmoozed with each other, exchanged stories and while they all relished the opportunity to get to talk to each other outside of the workplace setting...well, work still came up, of course. 

He could tell Catherine was also used to this, she was always one of the more outgoing members of the team and seemed like she was having fun, which is really all that mattered. 

It took him about three drinks before he was finally starting to have a little fun, too.

The first drink was to calm his nerves and settle the twitch in his neck as he passed through the threshold. He kept hearing her voice, seeing her face but he knew it wasn’t real, knew she wasn’t there. He also knew he wouldn’t need to leave, with so many of his friends and  _ family  _ there to protect him. 

They  _ would  _ protect him, right?

“You want another, Stokes?” a firm clap on his back startled him as he hunched over, gripping the edges of the table. He nodded stiffly and moments later, another glass was put in front of him.

He had made sure to balance it with food and water, starting with the lighter drinks and saving the lustfully desired heavier alcohols for later, in private, where he could truly unravel.

The second drink snuffed Veronica’s voice to a lower frequency and made him remember that yes, these people were his friends and yes, they did care about him. 

“Hey, you want a lift home later? Figured maybe we could pick up where we left off…” Greg’s voice whispered as his lips pulled up into a smile, allowing Greg to steal some food off his plate as an act of true love.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he whispered back, echoing Greg’s previous acceptance of such an offer. 

“Bed’s still just as we left it,” he added, taking a risk to peck Greg on his cheek in the guise of taking a sniff of his drink, which he was actually doing, too. Greg pinched his butt before walking away. 

The third drink finally cracked the shell and he was acting a bit more normally, albeit still a little tired. His exhaustion prevented him from straying further than a table close to the bar but being close to Catherine, he was surrounded by all the people he really needed, anyway. 

Not that he really  _ needed  _ anybody. It was far too late for that. 

“Shots?” Catherine asked, pointing to Sara and Nick.

“Shots,” Sara smirked. 

“Shots!” Nick slammed his empty drink on the table eagerly with a teasing roughness in his voice that made the ladies laugh.

“How many of those have you had?” Sara nodded to his new drink as Catherine made the order. 

“Eh, lost count,” Nick shrugged as he finished the latest drink in one go. He only had to take a few staggering steps to get to the bar to get another one, and when he returned, there was a full tray of shot glasses filled with varying colors of pure, undiluted alcohol.

He was the first to grab a glass. 

“To Cath’rine!” he toasted, and they all clinked the glasses together. 

“Wow, this stuff  _ burns!”  _ Sara coughed. He could feel his own cheeks burn, fire in his throat ready to expel out, but relaxing a tightly wound part of his body that felt... _ good.  _

“Not as much as a  _ gun _ shot,” Catherine remarked.

“Yeah, welcome to the club, Cath,” Nick scoffed, wincing as he felt a phantom pain in his shoulder as he shrugged off his jacket. He rolled his shoulder and took another shot.

“Oh, Nicky, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“Nahhhhh, it’s okay!” Nick blurted. “Like some sort of— _ vurp _ —badge of honor, ain’t it?”

He tipped another shot towards Sara.

“You gon’ be next?” he slurred. 

Awkward laughter though Nick’s was more genuine and yet less jovial, laughing more at the fact that all of their lives had been threatened in varying ways, at the very least once a year and none more so than  _ his  _ life...so far, at least. 

Not that it was a competition.

Though he would win. 

“I’ll be right back,” Catherine excused herself as she nodded towards the bathroom. Sara followed her with her eyes, pleading while Nick spun the tray around on the table like a roulette wheel.

“Doesn’t actually hurt that bad,” he pulled a face. “I hadta lie still for  _ so long  _ without making a single move or…”

Echoes of negotiating shouts and pleas bouncing through a restaurant. Having to keep still to pull out a staple to pick a lock. Blood  _ everywhere,  _ stinging pain but he had to bury it in the deepest recesses of his mind, bury _himself_ alive to _stay _alive.

“Might as well get rid of those ballistic dummies and use me instead. Although, any more holes in me and I’ll become a beehive. Dinn’t you and Griss keep bees?”

“Nick—” Sara began but Nick interrupted her.

“C’monnnn don’cha wanta know wha’it feeeeeeels like?” 

Nick’s turned his finger into a gun and pretended to fire. He blew it off before extinguishing it onto the table, his eyes no longer looking at Sara though still directed at her.

“‘Member how scared I used to be? When I assed—When I asked you if you had ever had a gun pointed at’cha?” 

“I do. Yeah.” 

The goofy smile slid off his face. His eyes turned a little darker. His voice got a little lower. 

“So...don’cha? Wanta know what it  _ really _ feels like?” 

She shook her head, hopped off from the bar stool and split into three floating Saras, all gaping at him like he had just been shot again.

“Lighten up, Sidle, I’m just playin’!” he bellowed, and Sara laughed awkwardly as before, but with a little more callousness. 

“Yeah...You’re being so stupid right now, you know that?”

“Pfffft c’monnn, you just can’t take a joke. Stubborn Sidle…” Nick muttered. “Or was it...Sara Stubborn-dle...or Stuck Up Sara, or Sara the Sneak…”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Names Rick n’ I came up for ya when ya first came to Ve- _ hic _ -gas. Don’t you think I forgot.” Nick jabbed a finger into the side of his head. “You had it out for him.”

“I did not!”

“Ya did! And look where it got ‘im!”

“What, so you’re blaming me for—why am I even arguing with you, you’re just a drunk dick,” Sara scoffed.  _ “‘Drunk Dick Nick.’” _

Nick let out a hollow laugh. 

“Now you’re getting it! Man, I gotta get some more food, you hungry?”

Sara swiped his glass before it met his lips and walked off.

“Hey!” 

“Asshole!” She called back. 

“That’s Ass- _ Clown!”  _

He waved her off and reached behind him to take an unoccupied drink as well as an unattended basket of pretzel bites as he watched Sara slip away into the waving sea in front of him, but he spotted his fellow assclowns drifting at another table. He met eyes with Hodges, who alerted the rest of the group and they all waved for him to swim over, but the phantom pains in the since-filled holes in his body were keeping him pinned to his seat. 

_ No, y’all come here!  _ He mouthed with exaggerated gestures. 

They all shook their head,  _ No, you come HERE! _

_ Ta hell with ya!  _ he raised a middle finger which earned some laughs from his friends who thought he was joking, but he really stood his ground and turned his attention elsewhere and continued to gorge on food that he either ordered or scavenged. Like the stage where something was being set up. Large speakers with a screen in between, a small machine plugged in towards the edge.

He got another drink before Veronica would coax him to put on another show for her, his fingers fighting off the snaking puppet strings as they danced against the glass and picked at his plate of pretzel bread.

He stuffed his own face this time.

“They’re asking for a speech, and I hear you’re the lab’s official orator,” DB whispered with a fatherly smile, appearing out of nowhere but Nick’s reflexes were so muted he wasn’t even startled.

“Already gave one,” Nick sneered as he lifted up his drink. “Pretty sure they don’t want ‘n encore.” 

“They all look up to you, you know. And now that my assistant’s gone…”

“You offering me a promotion? Thought my name was out of the hat for that one,” Nick’s heart suddenly lept, having thought that he would suffer the consequences of his mistakes in Los Angeles for the rest of his life.

“Well, I’m sure I could pull a few strings, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re leadership material. Look at how you handled things today!” 

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda done better, man. I wasn’t quite on my A game today,” he was able to admit now that it was all over. 

“That’s not true. That was a difficult position to be in.”

“Not as difficult as your’s.”

“Still. There’s nobody I trust more to hold down the fort and keep the team grounded. I can only hope you trust my judgement all the same. Think about it, will ya? And don’t kill too many of those braincells of yours,” he added in gesture to the new drink Nick didn’t even realize he had. 

DB clapped him on the shoulder and he nodded before he hung his head, the thought of getting what he deserved almost sobering him.

But it wasn’t enough.

He kept eating.

“Ladies and gentlemen! It’s Karaoke hour!” an announcer on the stage boomed, to an uproar of cheer for something to keep the night young. “Step on up, who’s going to be first?”

“Hey! You ready to go?” Greg’s voice cut in, his face softened in something unidentifiable to Nick. Concern, perhaps? He could feel Greg’s breath on his ear, the fruity drink tickling his nostrils.

It smelled like cherries.

Like  _ her.  _

“Mmm...not yeh—eeeeeeet,” Nick burped. He downed the rest of his drink and pointed it towards the stage, where an announcer was asking for volunteers to come do some karaoke. “They’re ‘bout to play my song, G!” 

He clapped Greg on the shoulder, setting the empty glass down and grabbing another before taking the stage. Just by presence alone, he garnered the applause of the crowd—mostly the women who appreciated as he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, ran his hand through his hair, winked at the front row and the men chimed in whooping cheers as he guzzled down a celebratory shot that was offered to him before the song even began.

It was a song that brought him back to the weddings he would attend as a small child of the seventies, watching his parents reveal a looser,  _ fun  _ side to themselves as they disco-danced across the ballroom underneath the glittering ball. Just as any small kid would, he followed suit and jumped in on the dance floor, becoming the literal center of attention just as he had now.

Only it was a little less adorable to watch a forty year old, drunk off his ass man about to partake in something he would  _ never  _ do if he was sober.

_ “At first I was afraid, I was petrified…” _

Back then, back when Nick Stokes first met Veronica, yes, he was indeed afraid, and he literally petrified. 

And really, that’s where the story of Nick Stokes had ended.

_ “Thinking I could never live without you by my side…”  _

He spotted Greg in the audience. Winked at him. Greg waved back eagerly as the returning Sara rolled her eyes.

_ “But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong…” _

All of the arguments they shared. All of the hardships. Disputes.  _ Insults,  _ even. 

Both Greg’s and Veronica’s. 

_ “And I grew strong, and I learned how to get alonggggggg!” _ Nick sang louder, pointing at the bartender and gesturing for another drink as he sauntered across the stage.

_ “And so you’re back! From outer space! I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face…”  _

Sara seemed to be a soil sport over it all, a sour glare on her face while the rest of the gang were laughing and cheering him on. Catherine even had her phone out to record the event.

_ “I shoulda changed that stupid lock. I shoulda made ya leave your key…” _

In a flash, Sara turned into Veronica, dangling his house key—no,  _ her  _ house key—up in the air. 

He trusted Sara with a key. Maybe he should ask for it back.

_ “If I’d have known for just one second you’d be back to bother me _ —”

He would have shot  _ her  _ if he knew she was back so soon to collect her favorite toy.

_ “Go on now, go!”  _ Nick barked out, pointing to the exit and staring directly at Sara. _ “Walk out the door! Just turn ‘round now ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore!”  _ he spun his finger in the air.

The rest of the team sent entertained “ooooohs” his way, buying into this seemingly friendly feud but they just fueled his building anger as he belted out the lyrics:

_ “Weren'tchu the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye? Did youuu-urp _ — _ think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?” _

One of the only things this new, dehumanized Nick had in common with the old. 

_ “Oh, no, not I! I will survive! Oh, as-long-as-I-know-how-to-love, I know I’ll stay alive _ —”

Was he alive after all? Was there still a little Stokes inside of him, fighting his way through the darkness? 

_ “I’ve got all my life to live, I’ve got all my love to give and I’ll survive _ —”

He held up his drink like a trophy much to the pleasure of the crowd.

“ _ I will survive! Hey, Hey!” _

He stole a sip while he danced around the stage in a dizzyingly twisting turn, but it’s the thumping bass that almost made him lose his balance and subsequently, alcohol started to dribble down his chin into his shirt as the glass just narrowly missed the hole between his lips.

He saved face and continued to sing,

_ “It took all the strength I had not’tah fall apart—” _

Oh, but he did.

So. Easily.

_ “Kept trying to mend the pieces of my broken heart,”  _ he put his heart to his chest, his eyebrows curving up with a slight pout to his lips, _ “And I spent, oh, so many nights just feeling sorry for myself…” _

A flash, and he was back in his bedroom, lying on the floor in an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants doing just that. 

_ “I used to cry!”  _ he feigned an exaggerated cry, which made the audience laugh,  _ “But now I hold my head up high!”  _

He puffed himself up, making himself appear far bigger than he felt.

_ “And you see me somebody new, I’m not that chained-up little person still in love with you _ —”

His neck suddenly felt sore. His soft wristband became a shackle. 

He suddenly felt naked.

_ “And so you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free…” _

His singing lost its confidence as well as its spite. His eyes suddenly shifted to the darker corners of the room.

_ “An’ now I’m saving all my lovin’ for someone who’s loving meeeeee!”  _ he struggled to reign himself in as he desperately looked to Greg, which...wasn’t...enough? 

When did Greg Sanders not become enough for him, or even for the buried essence of Nick Stokes?

And apparently it wasn’t enough for Greg either, who’s face had fallen, into a blush, but an almost...ashamed sort of blush. Embarrassed? Disappointed? 

Whatever it was, it  _ was  _ enough to get the man to get up and presumably run to the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Nick reached for his drink and finished it before he cut in halfway through the chorus as the crowd clapped to the beat of the song. Between the alcohol and outer support, he began to  _ really  _ hammer in the dancing, throwing his voice to a rough, growling, almost sultry performance of the rest of the song.

Judging by the audience’s reaction at the end of it all, as he got on his knees and tore his shirt apart with one final  _ “I WILL SURVIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!”  _ sang in the highest pitch he could achieve, the performance became less of a musical one and more of a comedic nature, which only hurt a little for the teenager inside of him who was part of a stardom-lusting high school rock band.

His ears burned as he plastered on a fake smile, waving to the crowd and stumbling off the stage—nearly falling, really as his mind spent more time plotting out the quickest path to another beer instead of seeing what was directly in front of him, which was a step that he missed and he tumbled—

But the friendship he earned from the bar’s occupants lifted him back up. Refilled his fuel with not just one, but  _ two  _ beers as they pushed him back up on the stage, chanting for an encore.

He chuckled and waved them off, but it was Catherine’s voice, which was somehow louder than the rest, begging him for one more song for the road, that had him scrolling through the karaoke machine, blindly choosing a song because the numbers and letters were blurred and jumbled. When he lifted his head up, his brain beat him to it, but he recovered quickly with a smile, and another wink.

“Before I begin...I was told that y’all wanted a little speech,” he belched, and while the rest of the bar seemed uninterested, all of his party began to chant, “SPEECH, SPEECH, SPEECH!” 

“Well, let’s raise a glass to our CSI family and the extended members, of course,” he added in gesture to the officers and detectives. “Although...wouldn’t call it so much a family anymore, now that I’ve suff-hic-iently pissed off Dear Sister Sara over there and I’m trying to fuck Greg so hard he’ll go blind...”

The laughing at the Stokes-Sidle feud was immediately extinguished as those five words registered in everyone’s heads. Drinks were spat out. Gasps hitched their breaths. 

_ I’m trying to fuck Greg.  _

Not in the screwing sense although, yes, in the screwing sense. The sexual sense. 

Yet another thing he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting to the public if he was sober.

“We’re losing one of the best but I mean, c’mon, those numb-nuts in the FBI need her more than we do. We’ve lost more and still  _ survived,”  _ he added in a cheeky reference that earned at least one half-hearted awkward chuckle. “And unless the lab explodes again, we’ll always be here. And I sure as hell won’t ever quit. Y’all may have given up on me, and left me when I needed y’all the most, but I won’t give up on you! And neither will Catherine, even if she’s miles and miles away.” 

“This one’s for ya, Cath! We love youuuuuu!” he shouted and pointed at the strawberry blonde woman still holding her phone as the next song began.

_ “One way, or anotha’, I’m gonna find ya…” _ Nick started.  _ “I’mma get’cha, get’cha, get’cha, get’cha…” _

There wasn’t as much cheering. Not much reaction at all, really, an uncomfortable tension now looming in the air as he continued to sing a song that he knew was a poor choice on his behalf, for what it now meant to him.

And it only got worse when the song became a duet. 

_ “I will drive past your house…”  _

He stopped singing. The crowd began to sizzle in confusion, murmurs and questions, “what’s his problem?” before louder boos rained down on him, “get him off the stage!”

_ “And if the lights are all down…” _

He dropped his drink. He held up a hand to block the spotlight as he scanned the crowd. There was no way in hell that she  _ wasn’t  _ here, because he was far too drunk for her to still be haunting him. 

Veronica was here, and singing the same taunting song she had recorded for Nick before.

_ “I'll see who's around…Like good ol' Greggy!"  _ she added in a terrifying giggle, and Nick was finally able to spot her. 

Standing next to Greg, who had been reeled towards the stage with his earlier outing of them both. 

“That’s...That’s her! That’s her, that’s Veronica!” Nick hollered, pointing down at her. The crowd was still rowdy and unruly, until they jeered at the feedback as he unplugged the karaoke player and continued to yell into the microphone. “Get her! Before she gets away!” 

The team had immediately sprung into action, especially Brass who had grabbed the woman by her shoulder and roughly pulled her from the crowd. Greg did a double take before looking up at Nick with confusion.

“Hey! Hey, Veronica? FUCK YOU!” Nick roared in sloppy laughter as the woman was pushed around in the makeshift mosh pit, screaming. “We got you, bitch!”

“Nick!” Greg called over the increasing gasps and screams from the crowd. 

“SHOULD HAVE BROKEN BOTH MY LEGS, CAUSE ONE’S ABOUT TO GO UP YOUR ASS!”

“NICK!” Greg hollered from Nick’s feet. Nick looked down at him with equal puzzlement, wanted to pick him up and question why he wasn’t reveling in the fact that  _ they got her! _

But it was because…

_ “Nick, that’s not her!”  _

The mic dropped and dribbled with screeching feedback that immediately shattered Nick’s senses. He watched how the woman was comforted by the less animalistic members of the crime lab, the ones who hadn’t jumped to the same brash judgement as the hardened detective and the officers under his command. 

He was so distracted that he didn’t see the brute rushing onto the stage until he was tackled to the ground. 

“That’s my  _ wife,  _ you dumbass faggot!” the faceless man screamed into his face, spit flying and blinding Nick before a punch knocked him somewhere out of his rag doll body. “I’m gonna make sure you can’t fuck that twink boyfriend of yours like you wanna—”

“Get’off’me,” Nick grumbled as he tried to hold his arms up defensively, curling his body up and feeling stupid and small for being so...weak. 

_ Nick Stokes _ wouldn’t have put up with this shit. 

He would have fought back.

And wouldn’t have blacked out. 

When he came to, the screaming and shouting and blaring music of the bar was gone. There was no sound at all, really, just the wind as he was flying without moving, stuttering flaps of rubber on pavement as he started to realize he was in a car.

Greg’s car, with how low the seats were and filled with the same stench of cherries.

And vomit. 

“What...What happened?” Nick croaked in a dry voice as he rubbed the throbbing sting in his temples.

“You got...punched.” 

Nick touched his eyes, while puffy and sinking easily upon being prodded, there was no pain associated, no black eyes.

“In the balls.”

“Oh,” he winced. He remembered the final words he heard and the pain of the past caught up to him. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

He looked down, only to find that his torso had become a landscape; a stream of sticky dried alcohol surrounded by chunky vomit that spilled onto the seat between his legs.

“Oh, God...I-I’m sorry, G…” he moaned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Greg waved. “You’re hardly the first person to throw up in my car, and you won’t be the last.”

More words began to cycle through his head. His own words. Some spoken, some shouted, some  _ sung.  _

And some that he wasn’t necessarily surprised, but also was, to find that Greg had yet to mention.

They remained silent as Nick tried to settle himself, rehydrating with an offered bottle of water and a stash of pain pills Greg always kept in his glove compartment. He was in the worst state, somewhere between being drunk and being hungover, the purgatory of suffering where he wanted to ease his queasiness yet also...still wanted another drink. One to make him feel  _ good  _ again.

Greg pulled into Nick’s driveway.

“Can you walk?”

“Yeah,” Nick grumbled. He spilled out of the car and got on his hands and knees, holding up a hand to Greg before using the side of the car as leverage to stand. 

The veins in his neck twitched and pinched. 

Despite Nick’s rebuttal of “no, no, I’m fine,” Greg still slung a hand around his side and guided him towards the door. He couldn't say he was ungrateful, as he found it was quite difficult to walk between the devastating blow to his privates and the effects of intoxication. Nick immediately found his bathroom and expelled more vomit. Took a quick shower that freshened his wilted limbs to give them enough energy to pull himself out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, ready to say goodbye to Greg as he knew that he killed any chance for intimacy.

But for some reason, the man still stayed with him.

Nick reached for a bottle of wine, staring Greg in the eyes as if begging for him to dare to say, “is that a good idea?”

But for some reason, Greg pulled down  _ two  _ glasses. 

“We’re in this  _ together, _ Nick,” he said. 

But for some reason, Nick wasn’t reassured.

“I ruined tonight,” Nick sullenly admitted with a sigh after the first sip.

“Ruined? What do you mean?”

“What I said. Back at the bar, about trying to…”

“Oh,  _ that!”  _ Greg barked out a laugh and a slap to the kitchen counter. “To be honest, I thought it was kind of funny. And I was sort of happy that you…

“But I didn’t just out  _ us,  _ I outed  _ you, _ too.”

“Eh, nobody was really surprised. And hell, Sara already definitely knew.”

“Made a fool outta myself even before that, with that damn karaoke…”

“Yeah, and Catherine recorded it.”

“Don’t remind me!” Nick groaned as Greg continued to laugh.

“Seriously, babe, it’s okay,” Greg put a hand on Nick’s bare shoulder. Nick nodded into a hung head as he fell into the wine glass. Greg twisted him and began to massage both his shoulders. 

“Doesn’t feel like it. This does, though,” he purred. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe you can return the favor,” Greg let go and grabbed Nick’s hand, pulling him to the bedroom. Nick clutched both glasses in one hand and the bottle in another, smiling as Greg nearly ran ahead of him, stripping off his clothes that he flung against the wall and eagerly pouncing into the already disturbed bed as if it were some sort of swimming pool. 

Nick certainly felt as if he was wading through water making his way to the bedroom. He tried to play it up, puffing his burning chest up and holding the glasses prestigiously in front of him, while hiding the bottle behind his back. As he made his way into his own bedroom he was suddenly very aware of his full nudity which made his lips tug down into a frown but Greg seemed to think it was part of the act; that Nick was taking the role of some elegant waiter. 

“And what sort of wine are we drinking tonight, good sir?” Greg inquired as Nick poured more into his glass. 

“Oh, well this, my fine friend, this is a vintage, aged red—”

“The wine is purple though.”

“Same difference, aged twice as long as you’ve been alive, this bottle has been passed down through generations of connoisseurs,” Nick’s voice became lower, more like a hum that made the hairs on the back of Greg’s head stand up. Nick refilled his third glass before laying on his side of the bed and continued, “Though none as keen on the intricacies as a man with such a rich taste as yours.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Greg chuckled and his cheeks blushed, not from the alcohol. “You flatter me.”

Nick downed his glass and set it aside. Greg did the same.

“I’ll show you romance,” Nick whispered, wrapping his arms around Greg and pulling him in. His mouth wafted and tasted the air between them, searching for Greg with an untethered passionate desire.

Greg nuzzled closer, his forehead just barely touching Nick’s own, he gaped his mouth open, an invitation which Nick had  _ seemed  _ to accept, until he felt a surge of electricity fizzle out from their connected lips. A voice screeched in his ears,  _ at  _ him. 

He pushed Greg away, shaking his head and rolled onto his back. He stared at the ceiling, his neck feeling less naked as he massaged his suddenly fizzing throat, something was rising from his stomach and daring to lurch out. 

“What’s wrong?” Greg asked as Nick began to pant. 

“Veronica didn’t say we could kiss,” Nick spoke in a small voice, almost as if he weren’t speaking to Greg.

“Veronica—What?”

Nick turned his head away, towards the bottle of wine and the glass on the nightstand, but still keeping his eyes transfixed on the ceiling. Just in case she came crashing through to grab Greg away from him again. 

“Back at the shelter, she...she didn’t say we could…” he elaborated, but the words fell away just as he was falling through the bed and onto the bed springs that ensnared his fingers and toes, before he sank down onto the bloodied, damp cement floor soiled with his own deprecation.

“Hold on...do you…” Greg twisted Nick around to face him as he sat up, cupping his hands on either side of Nick’s head. He spoke with an urgency like their lives were in danger, and in a sense, they were. 

Or rather, their relationship.

_ Nick Stokes  _ wouldn’t have let this happen, either.

“Do you...Do you actually remember?” Greg asked the man who was long gone in another, unreachable place.

* * *

_ “But...but you said...You said I wasn’t for sale,” Nick protested in a desperate attempt to keep his life, as sorry as it was, the way that it was. To be her’s, and nobody else’s. Nobody else would’ve had to take the burden of being Veronica’s favorite. Nobody else could have taken it.  _

_ Nobody else should have to take it. _

_ “Th-that you were gonna keep me…” _

_ And beyond that, it was hard enough being Veronica’s toy, how could he be anybody else’s?  _

_ In a way, he was safe with Veronica.  _

_ Anybody else would just kill him for his defiance and disappointment. _

_ He was lucky that Veronica kept giving out chances to prove his worth. _

_ Or he find a way to kill them, not for lack of trying in attempting to murder his present owner, save for the fact that he just...couldn’t. No matter what he tried.  _

_ Even a slice to her throat didn’t stop her.  _

_ But if he took her life, or that of one of the other monsters, what would make him better than them?  _

_ Would he end up just like...her? _

_ Greg immediately pulled away from their desperate embrace, which he both expected and yet disappointed by. He looked at Nick like he was a total stranger, and to a point, yes, he was. He was no longer Nick Stokes, hadn’t been for quite some time. He was no longer the man Greg knew.  _

_ And soon Greg wouldn’t be either. _

_ “Oh, Nicky, you break my heart,” Veronica pouted with her hand against her heart, feigning the breaking of her cold heart _ — _ Nick wasn’t even aware that she actually had one—but within an instant she slipped back into her sultry saunter, circling the two men on the floor. Nick straightened his back, did his best to keep his leg steady as he scrambled for Greg’s hand, his fingers dancing like spider legs as he tried to keep up an appearance for Veronica. For him. For Greg.  _

_ “My sweet, submissive subject…” she purred as she scratched the top of Nick’s head, her nails wrapping around the longer strands, brushing against his scalp and shaking the excess water away before her fingers slid down to the side of his cheek to his chin. She tilted his chin up as she walked around, relishing the way that he shivered for more reasons than just the cold goosebumps rising up all over his naked body. He could feel his skin drying and cracking, felt the twinges of pain from all the bruises and scrapes on his shredded knees.  _

_ More than anything, he could still feel the pain of his broken leg that he had locked deep inside his mind for the sake of leaping into action to save Greg from the terrible burns from the scorching hot water that they’d both been blasted with just moments before. He had almost gone numb, but just as when he had awakened from the tetrodotoxin during their first encounter, he was feeling everything tenfold.  _

_ “You’re right, I would never sell my most prized possession…” _

_ Nick’s lips quivered and his eyes fell to the floor as Veronica released him. He avoided Greg’s gaze, hating the sense of relief he felt in her reassurance to him.  _

_ She walked past Greg and around him, sending a harsh slap to the back of his head that bounced against the walls and back into his face as he side-collided against Nick from the blow. _

_ “And you, well, you’re gonna have to prove your worth to me, or else I’ll put you on clearance,” she laughed as Greg hissed. _

_ “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let that happen!” Greg spat out, daring to rise up from the floor. Nick immediately reached for his wrist to tether him down, but his fingers froze as he heard the clinking of keys, followed by a cackling buzz, and Greg collapsed back down to the floor in a foaming spasm.  _

_ “She won’t s-stop, ju-just do what she says,” Nick reiterated to his friend in a low stammering whisper. “Please…” _

_ Trembling fingers were just about to stroke Greg’s face before Veronica pulled their heads apart, sending Nick backwards and pulling Greg a few steps away and holding his head against her crotch. _

_ “I think it’s time for us to play a little game,” she smiled as she stroked the top of Greg’s hair while Nick sat back up only to lose himself in a tight grimace as he hovered his hands over his broken leg. “And the winner will get a special prize…” _

_ Nick breathed through his nose while his eyes watered from the white hot flashes of pain pulsing through the split veins and muscles seeping into the broken shards of his femur. His head drooped down and he lifted up, knowing that the vulnerable void of consciousness was calling him, luring him to an easy escape. _

_ But first he had to make sure Greg would be okay.  _

_ They just had to get back to his cell. _

_ Maybe that was the reward, that Greg would be able to stay with Nick. Nick could tell him the rules before Veronica would.  _

_ He propped himself up on his elbows, stopping his eyes from rolling too far as he looked up, ready to push through for the sake of love.  _

_ But love from who? _

_ “Veronica says…” Veronica began drumming her fingers on the top of Greg’s head, using her other hand to hold him underneath his jaw.  _

_ For a moment, Nick thought he heard a shrill screech and the snapping and squelching of another head severed to decorate his bird cage. But he blinked and Greg was still there, his face squeezed somewhere between confusion and fear.  _

_ “Veronica says...Greg…” she pinched his cheeks together and tilted his head back to look up at her. “It’s my birthday...sing me a song.” _

_ Nick inhaled, and didn’t release it until the song was over. It wasn’t as broken as his own performance, less wailing and more gritted. With Veronica’s hand squeezing his face, he had to sing through his teeth and Nick watched as his drool went from a drip to a stream over his lower lip.  _

_ The song lasted longer than ever, or so Nick thought because he blacked out halfway through, and when he came to, he thought Greg had been singing for hours. _

_ It was hard to tell without a watch or a proper clock, as his internal one had been destroyed along with his leg. Nothing except his profuse bleeding to distinguish the passage of time. _

_ “You sang better than Nick did,” Veronica giggles, releasing Greg and blowing a kiss as he collapsed to the floor. “Don’t you think so, Nicky?” _

_ Nick shook his head, staring at a puddle on the floor and sparing Greg the further embarrassment of his opinion on the matter. _

_ “Nick...Veronica says, clap your hands. Applaud our little Sinatra here!” Veronica raised her voice, lifting the keys up over Greg’s head. _

_ Nick had snapped to attention at the sound of the keys, though his scowl remained. His face fought what his body couldn’t as he lifted his hands, fingers uncontrollably snaking into and against each other as his palms slapped into the best clap he could muster, which wasn’t much of a clap at all.  _

_ “Now, come on, Nick!” Veronica sighed. “Don’t be such a harsh critic on poor little Greggy here…” _

_ The button was pressed, and Nick’s fingers dug into the knuckles of the opposite hand, pinching the mudcracks on his skin filled with his blood as a shock reset his body and his mind to reminded of his place, and his duty to his owner.  _

_ Once the shock is over, with twitching eyes, he unfurls his fingers. His hands splay against each other and he separates them, only to smash them together again in a clap heard around the world. And then another, and another. _

_ “Bravo...G…” he spat, for some bonus points that Veronica was more than delighted to give him. _

_ “Would you look at that!” Veronica gasped in mock-astonishment. “And all I asked was that you clapped.” _

_ With a clap of her own on both of Greg’s cheeks, she released him and he dropped to the floor, puffing out a few breaths as he reset his jaw.  _

_ “Veronica says...get on your hands and knees,” Veronica commanded with a snap, cutting the men’s recovery time short. Greg had obeyed far quicker than Nick, who struggled in keeping the knee of his busted leg steady on the floor that it didn’t even touch _ .  _ It hovered as he relied on the strength of his arms and his good leg to keep him up...but his elbows were wobbling. _

_ “Veronica says...bark like a dog.” _

_ Greg let out a disbelieving laugh, but Veronica didn’t get the joke. Nick shifted his eyes to look at Greg, a subtle warning shake of his head but Greg didn’t seem to step down. In fact, he got up on his legs, his fists curled on either side into the scraping cement.  _

_ “BARK...LIKE...A...DOG!” she hollered loudly, slowly, pressing the button for Greg while Nick continued his struggle to keep balance. Greg lurched forward with a scream, falling onto his elbows as his legs kicked up behind him.  _

_ “You’re yelping like one, at least. C’mon, boys…” _

_ “What, you on a time crunch?” Greg sneered through his recovering breath.  _

_ “Your mouth is as big as Nick’s, it seems,” Veronica growls, before turning her attention to Nick. “Or, as big as it was…” _

_ “H-hey, Veronica, please...after all...all we did together _ — _ ” Greg tried to appeal as Veronica crouched down in front of Nick, who had hung his head and closed his eyes in terror, biting his lips together.  _

_ “Oh, please, Greg. You’re a fool if you think I wanted YOU.”  _

_ Veronica traced her finger down the side of Nick’s face and lifted up his chin. His eyes were fluttering, twitching as he struggled to keep them open. _

_ “The real object of my affection is right here.” _

_ Veronica pulled up the keys and paused, waiting for Nick’s frantic reaction to come out of the trap in his eyes. _

_ As her finger hovered over the button, he let out a low, weak, strangled bark. _

_ Veronica turned her head expectantly at Greg, turning Nick’s head along with her finger.  _

_ A growl from Greg turned into a roaring bark. Nick flinched with a whimper as he struggled to hold himself up.  _

_ “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Veronica cooed, releasing Nick to pat Greg on the head, before skipping to the other side of the room. Both men winced at the screeching sound of an armchair getting dragged from a dark corner. Veronica slammed it into the floor before taking her spot on her makeshift throne, crossing her legs over and resting her hands on the armrests. _

_ “Veronica says...crawl to me. Whoever gets here first gets to sit in this chair. Whoever doesn’t…” She slapped her thighs. “Gets to be MY chair.” _

_ Greg looked over to Nick, who was gulping and mouthing something inaudible, talking really to nobody but himself. Bracing himself, for becoming Veronica’s chair.  _

_ “Nick…” Greg whispered, sending a soft whistle that made Nick slowly crane his head towards him. He nodded his head towards Veronica, telling Nick to go ahead. He needed it more than Greg did.  _

_ “Yes, Nicky. Come,” Veronica laughed, her voice thundering through the room.  _

_ Nick gritted his teeth and began his crawl, which was less of a full crawl and more of a belly inch with his hands clawing at the cement to pull him forward, his broken leg was dead weight that impeded his progress. The pain was becoming so intense that it felt like he didn’t even have a leg at all, that it had just been pulled easily from it’s socket like the insect he was.  _

_ He could taste the blood that was pouring out of his grossly infected leg, as the staples were loosened and dislodged from grinding against the damp and moldy cement. He felt the chilling fever despite the endless amounts of sweat and tears coating his skin. The air was thick and he couldn’t cut through it to breathe. _

_ “I c-can’t…” he groaned. It became a mantra. And excuse. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” _

_ His screams and sobs weren’t enough to garner any sympathy from his owner. Greg had made a move at first, which seemed to delight Veronica until she realized he was moving to help Nick, and promptly shocked him.  _

_ “Ah, ah, ah! No helping!” Veronica sang. _

_ “You’re killing him!” Greg shrieked. “He can’t do this with a broken leg, and he’s bleeding out, he’s going to DIE!”  _

_ “My, my, your lack of faith in your beloved is disturbing, Gregory. At least MY faith is absolute. Isn’t that right, Nicky?” Veronica snapped her fingers to grab Nick’s attention _ — _ the only sound he heard through his own screaming. She adopted a wickedly coaxing, encouraging tone, “Yes, come here, that’s a good boy…” _

_ Nick made it another inch and blinked into unconsciousness. Opened his eyes, screaming back into existence to make it another inch, blinking into a black void, again and again and again as Veronica grew larger and larger and Greg shrank smaller in his periphery. It almost delighted him, because he was going to win. He was going to win this game and wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. Veronica was going to reward him. He wouldn't be sat on or otherwise crushed by her.  _

_ He kept going. _

_ His body had felt lighter having lost a lot of blood, which he thought would make it easier to move but instead made it worse. His fingers were trembling so much they couldn’t grip anything. His nails were ground down, no longer able to scratch.  _

_ Somewhere between black outs, he thought he heard the chair screeching towards him.  _

_ Or moving farther away. _

_ Eventually, he got close enough to just barely touch Veronica with an outstretched hand before he blacked out one last time, and woke up with his face on top of her heel, his mouth sloppily hanging over and drooling over the freshly polished shoe.  _

_ “We have a winner!” Veronica proclaimed, and Nick lifted his head up to look at the amazon in front of him, who swooped down to lift him up with no care to his leg. His body involuntarily fought her, his arms flapping against her body as she clumsily put him in the chair that she was just sitting in. She stepped back to admire the results of her manhandling, staring at Nick with something in her eyes he couldn’t define.  _

_ She puppeteered his hands to clutch the arm rests and sat him up straight, with him having slumped in the chair. He spotted Greg behind her, just as small and still as he had left him at the other side of the room. He was on his hands and knees. He wondered if Veronica was going to make him crawl over here anyway.  _

_ As soon as Veronica was done playing and let go completely, Nick’s hands slid off the arm rests and limply dropped as his head began to loll to meet his chest. _

_ “Nuh-uh, Nicky, Veronica says we’re not quite done just yet…” _

_ Veronica lifted the chair up by the arm rests, his head slammed and bounced against the wall behind him. She leaned in to hear the words from his smugly curved lips.  _

_ “Go on, then. What’s the worst you can do to me?” he almost laughed through the fragile veil of strength that somehow still endured within him. “After everything you’ve already done?” _

_ “Oh, my little naive Nicky _ — _ ” _

_ Whatever the end of the sentence was, he didn’t hear it, as the final light died within him and he slipped away once more. _

_ From then on, Nick Stokes wouldn’t emerge from the protective, repressive retreat.  _

_ It was over. _

_ Veronica could have him to do with as she pleased. _

_ “Veronica says...Greg, get the hose,” her voice warbled in as his eyes remained closed, shuttering, blurring lights passing through. For a second, he thought he almost did see Veronica, sitting on top of her Greg-chair. _

_ As far as he was aware, there was no argument from Greg this time. He heard the scraping of the nozzle as it was presumably dragged along with him crawling on the floor.  _

_ “Veronica says you may kneel.” _

_ His eyes opened wide enough to see Greg only a few feet away, aiming some sort of gun at him, before he started to fall asleep again. _

_ “Veronica says...wake him up.”  _

_ “No...I can’t do that to him.” _

_ “You will. Or else. I’m not going to tell you again.”  _

_ The cracking sound of a smack against skin startled him awake, far too late for Greg to call off the water hounds that assaulted his already pressurized welted body. He didn’t have any energy to scream, instead tight whines and harsh groans until Veronica seemed satisfied enough to command Greg to stop.  _

_ “Veronica says...Nick-ayyyyyyy!” Veronica shouted into his face as she tapped his cheek. “Stay awake now, baby, or you’ll be disqualified, and did I mention what the loser gets?” _

_ “What?” Nick choked as he sputtered out the water that was sliding down his throat. _

_ “Another game...of ‘Operation.’” _

_ It was yet another reference lost on Greg, but Greg didn’t have anything that needed operating on. _

_ He did. Desperately.  _

_ And he definitely wouldn't survive her surgery. _

_ “You look so disappointed, sweetie...what’s wrong?” _

_ “I thought...I thought I won,” Nick cried. _

_ “Oh, don’t worry. You still can,” Veronica planted a kiss on top of his forehead, before gasping with inspiration. She turned around to Greg.  _

_ “Veronica says...Greg, sit on top of Nick. Straddle him. Don’t be shy now…” _

_ Greg rushed to the chair, but slowly sat himself in the chair on top of Nick, careful to avoid putting too much pressure on his broken leg. Veronica began to circle them in the meantime, but Nick kept his gaze locked on Greg. _

_ “Veronica says...Nick, wrap your arms around his waist.” _

_ It was a struggle, but Nick willed his hanging arms to engulf Greg and it almost felt good, if he didn’t have a sinking feeling of what she was about to make them do.  _

_ “Now, kiss.” _

_ She tapped the back of their heads, knocking them together. Their moist lips just barely touched, Nick got a bigger taste of the drool dribbling down Greg’s chin rather than the saliva in his mouth. _

_ “Like you mean it!” she growled, mashing their heads together again, harder, until they obeyed and locked into a passionate kiss like the ones they used to share on their secret dates, in their shared bed, in their privacy of each other’s company that was now nothing but a puppet show to the woman who jostled her keys _ — _ though this time, Nick was too far into Greg to even hear it _ — _ and pressed the button that tore them apart and into the throes of agony. _

_ The chair fell over and broke apart, the wood splintered into their bodies and Greg did his best to untangle himself from Nick, but ultimately had to cause more hurt to the leg which earned an inhuman scream that nearly deafened him. _

_ “Ahem, Veronica didn’t  _ say— _ ” Veronica wagged her finger down at the writhing men beneath her feet. “ _ — _ that you could kiss.” _

_ “Fuck you, bitch!” Greg coughed.  _

_ “Greg _ — _ ” Nick warned, as if he had any sort of charge in this situation.  _

_ “You know, Greg, you’ve been in last place so far in this little game we’re playing. I don’t think you’re even trying at all.” _

_ Nick blacked out again, before he could hear Greg’s reasoning as to why. _

_ “Let’s even the playing field, shall we?”  _

_ Nick was still on the floor, but Greg was nowhere in sight. He craned his head before he twisted his body as carefully as he could _ — _ the room was empty, Veronica’s shadow large and looming from the light of the other room, the surgery room. _

_ “Guh-Greg?” he shouted. If he could get Veronica’s attention, maybe Greg could escape. He could distract her well enough.  _

_ He heard metallic banging, knocking. Shouting. Screaming. Coming from all sides but eventually he tracked the source to the fallen locker. The same one he had been kept in as punishment.  _

_ He feared what Greg could have done to earn such a sentence.  _

_ “There, now that we’re ready…” Veronica entered the room, seemingly ignoring Nick as she wheeled in the small cart with a pan on top. He couldn’t see the contents from this angle, but saw the syringe that she lifted and flicked before she opened the locker.  _

_ Greg spilled out onto the floor, and stretched his long limbs out. He should have spent that time rolling away because just as soon as he was out, Veronica stood on top of him and injected him with the needle.  _

_ “NOOOOooooooo…” Greg protested, his loud yell evaporating into stark silence as his body fell into a sleep with his eyes still open. _

_ “The rat caught in a glue trap. He can’t move!” Veronica giggled, clapping her hands as she watched Greg’s eyes frantically roll in all directions, any sort of words or movement trapped in an involuntary stasis. He’d be numb to anything that would happen, such as Veronica stomping on his elbow, which still elicited a reflexive reaction of a twitching spasm.  _

_ “Oh, look at that. Looks like his arm is twitching.” _

_ He heard the sheathing of a knife as she lifted it off the table before kicking Greg’s body over and over so that it would roll towards Nick. Nick’s shaking fingers stroked Greg’s face, wiping the tears from his eyes before the stroking became an attempt to cling onto him as Veronica pulled him up and away by the back of his head with her fingers clutching his hair.  _

_ “Veronica says...Cut it off, Nick,” Veronica commanded, jabbing the hilt of the knife into Nick’s back and speaking with a candor as if Nick would be doing him a great favor. “Chop, chop, it looks like it’s almost naptime for you.” _

_ “N-no...no, I-I can’t…I can’t...” he began to stammer. _

_ “Either you do it, or I will…” she told him in a sing-song.  _

_ He’d rather cut his own arm off before even laying a finger on Greg. He dared to twist his head out of her grasp. He looked up at his owner with daggers in his eyes. _

_ “No!” he shouted, louder, bellowing from the pit of his stomach through the shredded windpipe in his neck. “I CAN’T!”  _

_ Her eyes lit ablaze when she saw this rare display of defiance, and her smile faltered before she leaned down and whispered, “I’ll cut off more than just his arm. And then I’ll…” _

_ Nick’s face crumbled as she continued to tell him what she would do, despite her claims that she wasn’t that kind of monster...at least not to him. _

_ She told him in explicit detail what he could never let happen to another person, let alone Greg. _

_ She suggested to him what he should do to prevent it.  _

_ The only thing he would have, could have, and should have done to save Greg Sanders. _

_ “I’m sorry,” Nick whispered through his heaving sobs, and raised the knife as Greg began to scream _ —

* * *

“I never forgot.”

Greg leaped off the bed as if it was set on fire, pulling the blanket with him to sheath his exposure. 

“So you…You  _ lied?” _

“It wasn’t necessarily a lie, I just. Didn’t really  _ tell  _ you.” 

Nick tried to remain casual, acting as if they could just sweep this under the rug and get back to what they started. He pretended that his moment of weakness was just that, a moment, and maybe if he just had another drink, he could persuade Greg to have another one too, and they could just  _ relax.  _

For once, Greg was the one who wasn’t going to let go so easily.

“You didn’t think it was important to tell me that you remembered everything she did to you? To me? To  _ us?” _

“I mean...I really don’t actually remember... _ everything  _ she did,” he scrunched his face, which was an actual truth. Over two weeks of torture, and he wasn’t fully conscious for all of it.

“But you remembered the kiss,” Greg accused him.

“I-I didn’t think...that part was real,” Nick muttered. “Didn’t...want it to be, not-not like that.”

“So you wanted it like this, under false pretenses?”

“What false pretenses?” Nick laughed wildly in bemusement, and he finally sat up, reached for the wine. He filled his glass to the brim and sat with his back towards Greg as he began to drink. 

“You’re acting like what happened never actually happened! Even though you know it did, and know how hard it’s been for us to be getting back to well,  _ us.  _ Together.”

“Hm. I don’t think this is about ‘_us,’ _though, is it?” Nick questioned loudly in his own accusatory tone, before tending to his already half-drunk wine glass.

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry, Nick Stokes,  _ trauma central! _ It’s always about you, always about how tough and  _ macho  _ you are, how you-you get kidnapped, you get stalked, you get shot and blown up, thrown out of a window, you get fucking  _ buried _ and walk it off like it’s nothing when it’s really eating away at you—and even  _ literally  _ eating away at you, and you never want to fucking talk about it, you just wanna repress it like you repress everything else, like you’ve always repressed  _ yourself _ — _ ” _

“I did talk about it. In therapy. With you.”

“No. That wasn’t talking about it. You admitted that yes, you were...you were chained up like some freak on a leash but you never talked about your  _ emotions  _ behind it, never talked about what it’s done to you, done to  _ us _ —” 

“What didja want from me, G? For me to apologize to you more than I already did, and I have  _ so many times,  _ even back in the shelter—”

“YOU WERE GONNA CUT MY FUCKING ARM OFF!” 

“AND I DIDN’T!” Nick yelled back, waving his arms. Some of his wine spilled out and onto the sheets but he didn’t give a shit, “I didn’t go all the way, I didn’t go through with it—because  _ I love you,  _ Greg!

“No, cause you  _ passed out—” _

“And if I didn’t—she would have…” Nick gulped, his breath hitched. His heart raced. This was it. This was his opportunity to tell the truth. To change the name of the game, to truly, once and for all open up to Greg Sanders about the most terrible crime someone could do on anyone, to tell him the one secret he’s only told one other person in his life—

“She would have done it herself!” he shouted instead, his voice louder than the child in his head begging him to just  _ say it,  _ more venomous than the soft urgency that had laced his previous words _ . _

Not that he really had any comfort to offer anyway.

“What would you have had me do?” Nick rounded the bed to approach, no— _ intimidate  _ Greg.

“I don’t know! Cut  _ her  _ instead?”

Nick laughed coldly, finished his drink.

“Don’t suppose you saw that lovely gash on her neck...or maybe you didn’t, I’m sure your eyes were focused more on the coconuts beneath the tree.”

“Could’ve...yourself…” Greg mumbled, and Nick looked at him with an intense glare.

“What was that?”

He didn’t mishear him.

“You could have cut yourself. She would have stopped, wouldn’t have wanted her  _ precious pet _ —” Nick flinched as spit flew from Greg’s lips and hit his face. “—getting hurt. You keep saying you love me, if you really did—”

The corner of Nick’s eyes were searing, there was an intense pain in his heart that made his whole body tremble in crackling fervor. If he didn’t know any better, he thought his leg was about to snap again.

“You think I...you think I didn’t want to?” 

He left the words hanging in the air before diving into how really, by that point, he wanted to do more and worse than just cut himself but he wasn’t ready for that admission to himself let alone bringing it up to an already pissed off Greg Sanders. 

Silence fell between the two men but the heat remained. Nick’s nostrils were flaring, his muscles flexed and lips thinly pursed. Greg was uncharacteristically shaking, his saliva seething between gritted teeth.

Greg made the first move.

To grab his clothes.

“Greg…”

“Save it.” 

“Why don’t...why don’t we talk a bit more about it—”

“Oh,  _ now  _ you want to talk?” Greg bellowed cruelly. 

_ Now you want to crawl?  _ Veronica’s voice mirrored in an echo.

“Yeah, let’s talk about our  _ feelings,”  _ Nick hissed, emphasizing the word. “Cause you know, you’re not the only one who gets to be upset by all of this—”

“What the fuck could  _ you  _ be so upset about? You _won._ You always do.”

“What, are you jealous that she liked me more than you?”

“I have  _ no feelings  _ for that...for that  _ monster!”  _

“But you did! You  _ wined,”  _ Nick tossed the glass onto the bed and went back for the full bottle, “and dined and dated and almost  _ mated  _ with her, and you cannot tell me that on some level, you were attracted, you  _ enjoyed  _ every minute you spent with her before you learned who she really was—”

“This isn’t about me,” Greg shook his head.

“Oh, c’mon now, G…” Nick’s voice was bitter, far more bitter than the small amount of booze still in the bottle. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? To let yourself get absorbed in a beautiful woman, because I wasn’t enough for you—”

“You were though!” 

“And you know, it’s-it’s funny...she seemed to know things about me that only like, Catherine and Sara would have known, besides  _ you.” _

“What are you getting at?”

“You told her  _ everything,  _ you betrayed my trust—”

“You never trusted me to begin with!” Greg ran up to Nick, pointing an accusatory finger that made Nick flinch once again, but he barked back—

“I DID! I DO!”

“ALL RIGHT, THEN, IF YOU TRUST ME SO MUCH, TELL ME—” Greg yelled, more spit flying before he paused to catch his breath and drop his voice an octave,  _ “Tell me,  _ what was she going to do if you didn’t cut my arm?”

Nick lifted his head, tried to stand taller but he slunk down and turned around. Gave up. It wasn’t worth it.

“Drop it.”

“No, what would she have done that was  _ so terrible  _ that it was worse than hurting the man that you  _ claim  _ to love?”

“I said  _ drop it, Greg!”  _

He dropped the bottle of wine on the ground. It didn’t shatter, and didn’t release the pent up explosion that was about to set off—

“You never loved me at all, did you? Or maybe you love  _ her  _ more than me—you  _ love  _ Veronica!” Greg’s voice wavered and he sniffled but any sort of empathy Nick had drained out with the now empty bottle of wine that he drank mostly on his own. 

Greg had paused, waiting for Nick to deny it. 

“Everything you said in the shelter was a lie…” he continued, now fully crying. Silent tears were streaking down his own face as he heard the muffled cries of the ghost of a child sitting on the bed he and Greg had shared, waiting for his mother to come back and take all the pain away.

But she never would, because she never knew about it.

She never could, because he didn’t even fully understand what was going on. Not then, not now, but what he did know, was that it was not good.

She never should have left. He shouldn’t have pushed her away. 

He shouldn’t push Greg away.

“Please, just. Don’t, Greg,” he pleaded harshly, a warning tone that Greg seemed to ignore.

“You were just  _ toying  _ with me in the false pretense of love.”

His blood was actually  _ boiling,  _ veins working overtime to keep up with the flow that was going so fast, it numbed his hands. His head hurt like never before, his brain shrinking and expanding like a rubber band snapping against his skull. There was something ringing in his ears, voices that he had been successful in shoving down now threatening to rise up against him. Nick’s fingers balled up into a fist. Either Greg needed to shut up or he needed to get another drink. Or both. 

“Shut up,” he growled. Another warning shot that missed its target.

“Like Veronica toyed with you, the spineless shell of a man who doesn’t even seem  _ human  _ anymore, just some sort of possession owned by that fucking psycho—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Nick screamed as loud as he could, and his fist flew at the wall, nearly swallowing him before he stopped himself with his other hand, nearly spraining his wrist from the force. 

He pulled his fist out of the hole he created. His knuckles were cracked open, bleeding from hitting a wooden post. 

He stumbled back, tripping over the wine bottle, and falling back against the bed, a shock to his spine and to his neck as he just did something  _ very bad  _ and punishment was coming. 

For a few endless minutes, there was no sound but his heavy breathing and one singular whimper from Greg that made him regret  _ everything.  _

“Was that necessary?” Greg broke the silence with a sobered voice that made him question just how long they stayed like that.

“I think you should leave,” Nick responded a minute later, his voice still slurring and he was trying to display some semblance of calm as the tension finally fizzled out of his fatigued body.

“So, is this what really happens when you have one too many? And after all this time, I was trying to help you, just like your mom tried—”

“Get the  _ fuck  _ out of here, Greg!” Nick spat, and his bedroom door was slammed before he even twisted around to watch him leave. 

His anger dissolved into despair once he realized he was alone. Truly alone. Back in the same doghouse he was in, with everybody against him only this time...Catherine was gone, and he lost Greg. 

He didn’t deserve them anyway. 

He got up and opened his door, selfishly hoping Greg was still there but the dollhouse was empty. No prying eyes looking in. Nobody to  _ toy  _ with him. 

He stumbled into the kitchen and his shaking breath was in tandem with his shaking hands as he pulled down something stronger than wine, a jar of moonshine that Hodges had given him as an inside joke from their road trip to a barbecue joint. 

He brought it with him into the bathroom, where he collapsed on the counter, vomiting into the sink before he studied the reflection in front of him.

Reddened eyes, pale face. Hair unkempt and matted, it was growing out again but he didn’t really feel compelled to cut it. 

But the most notable thing was the collar around his neck. 

“You worthless piece of shit! You see what you’ve done?” his own voice yelled at himself, his spit flying and landing on the glass. But it wasn't quite his voice. Wasn't Nick Stokes. It was Veronica's Nick berating him and telling him the truth of what he was; _absolutely nothing._

The reflection started to cry. Blubber. Sob.  _ Wail.  _ The sound was just as annoying and harsh as the sting behind all the words cycling in his head, with Veronica's and Greg's screaming the loudest. 

Nick took a long sip of the moonshine, and didn’t know what happened after that, besides the complete shattering of glass that had long since been cracked.

* * *

Nick had already been on his way there, having ignored the teasing disco dance moves from the lab rats before he ran into Greg who was seeking the same guidance in the ruins of Catherine’s office. He paused, unsure of what to do. Did he take the risk to try and restore at the very least, their working relationship? Cause really, they couldn’t avoid each other forever. 

So he nodded tentatively when Greg turned his head. Greg nodded back. 

He moved forward. Greg sighed as Nick leaned into the doorframe. He figured that Greg would leave for the sake of giving Nick the space he selfishly wanted to himself.

“Have you talked to Catherine?”

Nick disguised his surprise that Greg said  _ anything,  _ let alone asked him a question.

“Yeah.” But not enough, not in the way he would have liked. “Yeah, have you?”

“Yeah. She, uh, sounded good.”

“Yeah. She’ll show those FBI boys how to fly straight, huh?”

Right now he felt anything but.

“She did it for me.”

“She did it for  _ all of us,”  _ he spoke as a reminder. The two lettered word felt distasteful coming out of his mouth but Greg didn’t seem to notice.

“Well, Quantico isn’t that far, right?”

“No, not really,” he chuckled softly. He appreciated the optimism, though they both knew that distance added with time equaled a drift. The same drift he experienced with old friends in school, classmates he had  _ sworn  _ would be “friends forever!” 

The same drift Nick feared he permanently wedged between them.

He tugged at the collar of his turtleneck that he wore to hide the other ghost of a collar that still shocked and suffocated him.

“Listen...about the other night—” he began in a low whisper, but was interrupted by the arrival of the undersheriff swiftly walking past them like a speeding bullet.

“Well, that can’t be good…” 

They looked at each other for a solid minute before Greg cleared his throat and looked back into the office.

“It doesn’t matter, you know. That night,” Greg finally spoke.

“Doesn’t...what do you mean?”

“We were both in a bad place. And it’s in the past now. We wouldn’t do it now. Nothing else we could do about it but...move on.”

“Yeah, that’s what we should do,” Nick agreed with a sad smile. Greg nodded and smiled stiffly before taking his leave.

Maybe he was ready to forget, too.


End file.
